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THE 

TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

OF 

CICERO. 



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THE 



TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 



OF 



CICERO 



A NEW EDITION, 
REVISED AND CORRECTED, 

BY W. H. MAIN. 



" O vitae Philosophia dux! o virtutis indagatrix, expultrixque 
vitiorum ! quid non modo nos, sed omniuo vita hominum, sine te, 
esse potuisset V Cic. Tusc. Qu^est. lib. v. §. 1. 



LONDON: 



PUBLISHED BY W. PICKERING, 

57, CHANCERY LANE. 



MDCCCXXIV. 









T. White, Printer, Johneon's Conrt, London. 



CONTENTS. 



BOOK I. 

Page 
On the Contempt of Death 1 



BOOK II. 
On bearing Pain 77 

BOOK III. 
On Grief of Mind 118 

BOOK IV. 

On other Perturbations of the Mind 170 

BOOK V. 

Whether Virtue alone be sufficient for a happy Life . . Wll 



'V 












THE 



TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 



OF 



MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. 



BOOK I. 

ON THE CONTEMPT OF DEATH. 

I. As I am, at length, entirely, or to a great 
degree, freed from the fatigue of defending clients, 
and the duties of a senator, I have recourse again, 
Brutus, principally by your advice, to those studies 
which never have been out of my mind, although 
neglected at times, and which after a long interval 
I have resumed : and since the reason and pre- 
cepts of all arts which relate to living well, depend 
on the study of wisdom, which is called philosophy, 
I have thought of illustrating this in the Latin 
tongue ; not because philosophy could not be 
understood in the Greek language, or by Greek 
masters ; but it was always my opinion, that we 
have been more happy at inventing than the 



2 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

Greeks, or that we have improved on whatever we 
have received from them, which they have thought 
worthy their care and pains : for, with regard 
to manners and economy, family and domestic 
affairs, we certainly now manage them with more 
elegance, and hetter than they did ; and our ances- 
tors have, beyond all dispute, formed the republic 
on better laws and customs. What shall I say of 
our military affairs; in which, as our ancestors 
excelled them much in valour, so more in disci- 
pline ? As to those things which are attained not by 
study, but nature, neither Greece, nor any nation, 
is comparable with them; for with whom was 
ever that gravity, that steadiness, that greatness 
of soul, probity, faith — such distinguished virtue 
of every kind, as to equal them with ours ? 
Greece excelled us in learning, and all kinds of 
literature, and it was easy to do so where there 
was no competition ; for amongst the Greeks the 
poets were the most ancient species of learned 
men. Of these Homer and Hesiod were before the 
foundation of Rome ; Archilochus, in the reign of 
Romulus. We received poetry much later; Livy 
gives us a fable near five hundred and ten years 
after the building of Rome, in the consulate of 
C. Claudius, the son of Caecus, and M. Tuditanus, 
a year before the birth of Ennius, who was older 
than Plautus and Naevius. 

II. It was, therefore, late before poets were 



OF CICERO. • 3 

either known or received amongst us ; though we 
find in Cato de Originibus that the guests used to 
sing at their entertainments, the praises of famous 
men, to the sound of the flute ; but a speech of 
Cato's shows the custom to have been in no 
great esteem, as he censures Marcus Nobilior, 
for carrying poets with him into his province : 
for that consul, as we know, carried Ennius with 
him into ^Etolia. Therefore the less esteem 
poets were in, the less were those studies pur- 
sued : not but if, had there been amongst us any 
of great abilities that way, they would not have 
been at all inferior to the Greeks. Do we ima- 
gine that, had it been commendable in Fabius, a 
man of the first quality, to paint, we should have 
been without many Polycleti and Parrhasii ? 
Honour nourishes art, and glory is the spur with 
all to studies ; those studies are always neglected, 
which are a kind of disgrace to any. The Greeks 
held vocal and instrumental music as the greatest 
erudition, and therefore it is recorded of Epami- 
nondas, who, in my opinion, was the first man 
amongst the Greeks, that he played excellently 
on the flute ; and Themistocles some years be- 
fore was deemed ignorant because he refused at 
an entertainment to play on the lyre. For this 
reason musicians flourished in Greece ; music was 
a general study ; and whoever was unacquainted 
with it, was not considered as fully instructed in 



4 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

learning. Geometry was in high esteem with 
them, therefore none were more honourable than 
mathematicians ; but we have confined this art to 
bare counting and measuring. 

III. But on the contrary, we soon entertained 
the orator ; no ways eloquent at first, but capable 
enough for an harangue, he soon became elo- 
quent ; for it is reported that Galba, Africanus, 
and Laelius, were men of learning; that even 
Cato was studious, who was an age before them : 
then succeeded the Lepidi, Carbo, and Gracchi, 
and so many great orators after them, even to our 
times, that we were very little, if at all, inferior 
to the Greeks. Philosophy has been at a low ebb 
even to this present time, and had no assistance 
from our own language, which I have undertaken 
to raise and illustrate ; so that, as I have been of 
service to my countrymen, when employed in 
public affairs, I may, if possible, be so to them in 
my retirement. In this I must take the more 
pains, because many books are said to be written 
inaccurately, by excellent men, but not erudite 
scholars : for indeed it may be that a man may 
think well, and yet not be able to express his 
thoughts elegantly; but for any one to publish 
thoughts which he can neither methodize, nor illus- 
strate nor entertain his reader, is an unpardonable 
abuse of letters and retirement : they, therefore, read 
their books to one another, which were never taken 



OF CICERO. 5 

up by any but those who claimed the same privi- 
lege of writing. Wherefore, if oratory has acquired 
any reputation from my application to it, I shall, 
with more pains, open the fountains of philosophy, 
from which flowed all the advantages of the 
other. But, 

IV. As Aristotle, a man of excellent parts, 
abundant in all knowledge, being moved at the 
glory of the rhetorician Isocrates, commenced 
teacher of youth, and joined philosophy with elo- 
quence : so it is my design not to lay aside my 
former study of oratory, and yet employ myself 
in this greater and more fruitful art ; for I always 
thought, that to be able to speak copiously and 
elegantly on the most important questions, was 
the most consummate philosophy, to which sub- 
ject I have so diligently applied myself, that I 
have already ventured to have Disputations like the 
Greeks. And lately when you left us,'having many 
of my friends about me, I attempted at my Tus- 
culum what I could do in that way ; for as I 
formerly practised declaiming, which nobody con- 
tinued longer than myself, so this is now to be 
the declamation of my old age. I ordered a person 
to propose something he would have discussed : I 
disputed on that, either sitting or walking, and 
have compiled the scholas as the Greeks call them, 
of five days, in as many books. It was in this 
manner : when he who was the hearer had said 



O THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

what he thought proper, I disputed against him ; 
for this is, you know, the old and Socratic method 
of disputing against another's opinion; for Socrates 
thought the truth might thus the easier be disco- 
vered. But to give you a better notion of our dis- 
putations, I will not barely send you an account 
of them, but represent them to you as they were 
carried on ; therefore let the introduction be thus. 
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil. M. 
What, to those who~are already dead ? or to those 
who must die ? A. To both. M. It is a misery 
then, because an evil ? A. Certainly. M. Then 
those who must soon die, and those who must die 
some time or other, are both miserable ? A. So it 
appears to me. M. Then all are miserable ? A. 
Every one. M. And, indeed, if you are consistent 
with yourself, all that are already born, or shall 
be, are not only miserable, but always will be so; 
for should you maintain those only to be miserable, 
who must die, you would not except any one 
living, for all must die ; but there should be an 
end of misery in death. But seeing that the dead 
are miserable, we are born to eternal misery, for 
they must of consequence be miserable who died 
a hundred thousand years ago ; or rather, all that 
have been born. A. So indeed I think. M. Tell 
me, I beseech you, are you afraid of the three- 
headed Cerberus below, the roaring waves of 
Cocytus, the passage over Acheron, Tantalus ex- 



OF CICERO. 7 

piling with thirst, while the water touches his chin ; 
or Sisyphus, 

Who sweats with arduous toil to gain 
The steepy summit of the mount in vain? 

Perhaps, too, you dread the inexorable judges, 
Minos and Rhadamanthus, before whom nor 
Crassus, nor M. Antonius can defend you ; nor, 
since the cause lies before Grecian judges, De- 
mosthenes. But you must plead for yourself before 
a very great assembly : you dread perhaps these, 
and therefore look on death as an eternal evil. 

VI. A. Do you take me to be mad enough to 
give credit to such things ? M. What ? do you 
not believe them 1 A. Not in the least. M. I 
am sorry to hear that. A. Why, I beg ? M. Be- 
cause I could have been very eloquent in speaking 
against them. A. And who could not on such a 
subject ? or, what occasion is there to refute these 
monsters of the poets and painters ? M. And yet 
you have books of philosophers full of arguments 
against these. A. Idle enough, truly ! for, who is 
so weak as to be concerned about them ? M. If 
then there are none miserable in the infernal re- 
gions, there must be no one there. A. I am alto- 
gether of that opinion. M. Where then are those 
you call miserable ? or what place do they in- 
habit ? if they are at all, they must be somewhere ? 
A. I, indeed, am of opinion, they are no where. 



8 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

.M Therefore there are none such. A. Even so, 
and yet they are miserable for this very reason, 
that they are not at all. M. I had rather now 
that you had been afraid of Cerberus, than to 
speak thus inaccurately. A. Why so ? M. Be- 
cause you admit him to be, who is not ; where is 
your sagacity ? When you say any one is miserable, 
you say such a one is, when he is not. A. I am 
not so absurd as to say that. M. What is it you 
say then ? -4.1 say, for instance, that Crassus is 
miserable in being deprived of such great riches 
by death ; that Cn. Pompey was so, in being 
taken from such glory and honour ; upon the 
whole, that all are miserable who are deprived 
of this light. M. You have returned to the same 
point, for to be miserable implies an exist- 
ence; but you just now denied that the dead 
had any existence ; if they are not, they can be 
nothing ; and if so, not miserable. A. Perhaps I 
do not express what I mean, for I look upon this 
very thing, not to exist, after having been, to be 
very miserable. M. What, more so than not to 
have been at all? therefore, those who are not yet 
born, are miserable because they are not; and we 
ourselves, if we are to be miserable after death, 
were miserable before we were born : but I do not 
remember I was miserable before I was born ; 
and I should be glad to know, if your memory is 



OF CICERO. 9 

better, what you recollect of yourself before you 
were born. 

VII. A. You are pleasant, as if I had said, 
they are miserable who are not born, and that 
they are not so who are dead. M. You say then 
that they are so ? A. Yes, because they are most 
miserable not to be, after they have been. M. 
You do not observe, that you assert contradic- 
tions ; for what is a greater contradiction, than that 
that should be not only miserable, but should be 
at all, which is not ? When you go out at the 
Capene gate and see the tombs of the Calatini, the 
Scipios, Servilii, and Metelli, do you look on 
them as miserable ? A. Because you distress me 
with a word, henceforward I will not say they are 
miserable in general, but miserable for this, that 
they are not. M. You do not say then M. Cras- 
sus is miserable, but only miserable M. Crassus. 
A. Evidently so. M. As if it did not follow, 
that whatever you declare in that manner, either 
is or is not. Are you not acquainted with 
the first principles of logic ? for this is the first 
thing they lay down, whatever is asserted, (for so 
I render the Greek term, a&ty«, I may express it 
otherwise when I shall find a better) is therefore 
asserted, because it is either true or false. When, 
therefore, you say miserable M. Crassus, you either 
say this, that M. Crassus is miserable, so that 
some judgment may be made whether it be true 



10 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

or false, or you say nothing. A. Well then, I 
now own that the dead are not miserable, since 
you have drawn from me a concession, that they 
who are not at all, cannot be miserable. What 
then ? we that are alive, are we not wretched, 
seeing we must die ? for what is there agreeable 
in life, when we must night and day reflect that 
we may instantly die ? 

VIII. M. Do you not then perceive how great 
an evil you have delivered human nature from ? 
A. By what means ? M. Because, if to die is 
miserable to the dead, to live would be a kind of 
infinite and eternal misery : now I see a goal, which 
when I have ) reached, there is nothing more 
to be feared ; but you seem to me to follow the 
opinion of Epicharmus, a man of some discern- 
ment, and sharp enough for a Sicilian. A. What 
opinion ? for I do not recollect it. M. I will tell 
you if I can in Latin, for you know I am no 
more used to bring in Latin sentences in a Greek 
discourse, than Greek in a Latin one. A. And 
that is right enough; but what is that opinion of 
Epicharmus ? . - 

M. I would not die, but yet 

Am not concerned that I shall be dead. 

A. I now recollect the Greek, but since you have 
obliged me to grant that the dead are not miser- 
able, proceed to convince me that it is not miser- 
able to be under a necessity of dying. M. That 



OF CICERO. 1 1 

is easy enough, but I have greater things in hand. 
A. How comes that to be so easy? and what are 
those things of more consequence ? M. Thus : 
because, if there is no evil after death, death 
itself can be none ; for what succeeds that imme- 
diately, is a state where you grant there is no 
evil; so that to be obliged to die can be no 
evil ; for that is to arrive there where we allow no 
evil is. A. I beg you will be more explicit on 
this, for these subtle arguments force me sooner 
to a concession than conviction; but what are 
those more important things you undertake ? 
M. To teach you, if I can, that death is not 
only no evil, but a good. A* I do not insist 
on that, but should be glad to hear, for should 
you not prove your point, yet, you may prove 
that death is no evil : but I will not interrupt 
you, I should like to hear a continued discourse. 
M. What, if I should ask you a question, would 
you not answer 1 A. That would have pride in it ; 
but I would rather you should not ask but where 
necessity requires. 

IX. M. I will comply with you, and explain 
as well as I can, what you require ; but not like 
the Pythian Apollo, that what I say must be in- 
fallible ; but as a mere man, endeavouring at pro- 
babilities, by conjecture, for I have no ground to 
proceed further on, than probability. Let them 
deal in demonstrations, who say, they can perceive 



32 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

things as they are, and who proclaim themselves 
philosophers, by profession. A. Do as you please, 
we are ready to hear you. M. The first thing is 
to inquire, what death, which seems to be so 
well known, is ; for some imagine death to be the 
separation of the soul from the body ; some that 
there is no such separation, but that soul and body 
perish together, and that the soul is extinguished 
with the body. Of those who admit of the 
soul's separation, some are for its immediate de- 
parture, some that it continues a time, others for 
ever : there is great dispute even what the soul 
is, where it is, and whence it is derived : with 
some, the heart itself seems to be the soul, hence 
the expressions, out of heart, bad-hearted, and of 
one heart ; and that prudent Nasica, twice consul, 
was called Corculus, i. e. wise heart ; and iElius 
Sextus, a man of noble heart. Empedocles ima- 
gines the heart's blood to be the soul; with 
others, a certain part of the brain seems to be the 
throne of the soul ; others neither allow the heart 
nor a certain part of the brain to be the soul ; 
but some would have the heart to be the seat and 
mansion of the soul; others, the brain. Some 
would have the soul, or spirit, to be air, as we 
generally do ; the name signifying as much, for 
we say to breathe, to expire, to be animated, &c. 
and the Latin word for the spirit implies breath. 
The soul seems to Zeno, the Stoic, to be fire. 



OF CICERO. ] 3 

But what I have said of the heart's blood, air, 
and fire, are general opinions ; the rest almost 
singular, of which there were formerly many 
amongst the ancients. 

X. The latest is Aristoxenus, both musician 
and philosopher ; he maintains a certain intension 
of the body, like what is called harmony in music, 
to be the soul. Thus, from the figure and nature 
of the body, various motions are excited, as sounds 
from an instrument. He stuck close to his profes- 
sion, and yet he said something, whatever it was, 
which had been said and explained a great while 
before by Plato. Xenocrates denied that the soul 
had any figure, or any thing like matter; but 
said it was a number, the power of which, as Py- 
thagoras thought, some ages before, was the great- 
est in nature : his master, Plato, had imagined a 
three-fold soul ; the chief, i. e. reason, he had lodg- 
ed in the head, as in a tower ; and being willing 
to separate the other two, he placed anger in the 
breast, and desire under the praecordia. But Di- 
casarchus, in a discourse of some learned disputants, 
held at Corinth, which he gives us in three books ; 
in the first of which he makes many speakers ; in 
the other two he introduces a certain Pherecrates, 
an old man of Phthios, who, as he said, was de- 
scended from Deucalion ; asserting, that there is 
in fact no soul ; and that it is a name, without a 
meaning ; and that it is idle to say, animals, or 



14 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

animated ; that neither men nor beasts have 
minds or souls ; and all that power, by which we 
act or perceive, is equally infused into every living 
creature, and is inseparable from the body, for it 
then would be nothing ; nor is there any thing 
besides one simple body, so fashioned, as to live 
and have its sensation, from the temperature of 
nature. Aristotle, superior to all, both in parts 
and industry (I always except Plato), having em- 
braced these four known sorts of principles, from 
which all things deduce their original, imagines 
there is a certain fifth nature, from whence comes 
the soul ; for to think, to foresee, to learn, to teach, 
to invent any thing, and many others ; as, to re- 
member, to love, to hate, desire, to fear, to be 
pleased or displeased ; these, and such like, are, 
he thinks, in none of those four kinds : he adds a 
fifth kind, which has no name, and thus by a 
new name he calls the soul eVcx/p^a, as it were a 
certain continued and perpetual motion. 

XL If I have not forgotten, these are all the 
opinions concerning the soul. I have omitted 
Democritus, a very great man indeed, but who 
deduces the soul from the fortuitous concourse of 
light and round corpuscles, as with them, the 
crowd of atoms can effect every thing. Which of 
these opinions is true, some god must determine : 
the great question with us is, which has the most 
appearance of truth : shall we determine between 



OF CICERO. 15 

them ; or return to our subject ? A. I could wish 
T)oth, if possible ; but it is difficult to mix them ; 
therefore, if without a discussion of them we can 
get rid of the fears of death, let us proceed to do 
so ; but if this is not to be done without explaining 
the question about souls, let us have that now, 
the other, another time. M. I take that to be 
best, which I perceive you are inclined to ; for 
reason will evince, that let either of the opinions I 
have stated be true, death cannot be an evil : for, 
if either the heart, the blood, or brain, be the 
soul, certainly, as corporeal, it will perish with 
the rest of the body ; if it should be air, it will be 
dispersed ; if fire, extinguished ; if Aristoxenus's 
harmony, disconcerted. What shall I say of 
Dicaearchus, who denies there is any soul? In 
all these opinions, there is nothing to affect any 
one after death ; for all feeling is lost with life, 
and where there is no sensation, nothing can 
interfere to affect us. The opinions of others are 
charged with hope ; if it is any pleasure to you 
to think, that souls, after they leave the body, 
may go to heaven as their abode. A, I have 
great pleasure in that thought, and it is what I 
most desire ; but should it not be so, I still am 
very willing to believe it. M. What occasion 
have youthen for my assistance? am I superior to 
Plato in eloquence ? turn over carefully his book 
that treats of the soul, you will have there all 



16 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

you can want. A. I have indeed done that, and 
often ; but I know not how, I allow of it whilst I 
am reading ; but when I lay down the book, and 
begin to reflect with myself on the immortality of 
the soul, that conviction vanishes. M. How comes 
that? do you admit that souls exist after death, 
or that they perish in death ? A. I agree to that. 
M. What if they should exist ? A- I allow them 
happy. M. If they perish ? A. I cannot think 
they are unhappy, because they have no exist- 
ence. You drove me to that concession but just 
now. M. How then can you maintain any sus- 
picions of death being a misery, which either 
makes us happy, the soul continuing ; or not un- 
happy, as void of all sensation ? 

XII. A. Explain therefore, if it is not trouble- 
some, first, if you can, that souls exist; then, 
should you fail in that, for it is very difficult, that 
death is free of all evil ; for I am not without my 
fears, that this itself is an evil ; I do not say, the 
immediate deprivation of sense, but, that we shall 
be deprived. M. I have the best authority in sup- 
port of the opinion you desire to have established, 
which ought, and generally has, great weight in 
all cases. And first, I have all antiquity on that 
side; which the nearer it is to its origin and 
divine descent, possibly by that discerns truth the 
clearer : this very thing, then, was adopted by all 
those ancients, whom Ennius calls in the Sabine 



OF CICERO. 1 7 

tongue, Casci; that in death there was a sensa- 
tion, and that, when men departed this life, they 
were not so entirely destroyed, as to perish ab- 
solutely. And this may appear, as from many 
other things, so from the pontifical rites, and 
funeral obsequies, which men of the best sense 
would not have been so solicitous about, nor 
fenced from any injury with such severe laws, but 
from a firm persuasion, that death was not so 
entire a destruction as to leave nothing remain- 
ing, but a certain transmigration, as it were, and 
change of life ; which usually conveyed the illus- 
trious of both sexes into heaven, confining others 
to the earth, but so as still to exist. From this, 
and the sentiments of the Romans, 

In heaven Romulus with gods now lives, 

Ennius saith, on common report : hence Hercules 
is held so great and propitious a god amongst the 
Greeks, from whom we received him, as he is also 
by those who inhabit the borders of the ocean. 
Hence Bacchus was deified, the offspring of Se- 
mele ; and from the same illustrious fame we 
receive Castor and Pollux, as gods, who are 
reported not only to have helped the Romans to 
victory in their battles, but to have been the mes- 
sengers of their success. What? Ino, the daughter 
of Cadmus, is she not called Leucothea, by the 
Greeks, and Matuta, by us ? What ? is not all 

c 



18 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

heaven (not to dwell on particulars) filled, as it 
were, with the offspring of men ? 

XIII. Should I attempt to search into anti- 
quity, and produce from thence, what the Greek 
writers have asserted ; it would appear that even 
those who are called their principal gods, went 
from hence into heaven : examine the sepulchres 
of them which are shown in Greece ; recollect, as 
you are initiated, what is delivered in the myste- 
ries ; then will you perceive how extensive this 
doctrine is. But they who were not acquainted 
with physics, (for they began to be in vogue many 
ages after) had no higher conviction, than what 
natural reason could give them ; they were not 
in possession of the reason and cause of things ; 
they were often induced by certain visions, and 
those generally in the night, to think that they 
were still alive, who had departed from this life. 
And this may further be brought as an irrefragable 
argument, that there are gods, in that there never 
was any nation so barbarous, not a single instance 
of that savageness, as to be without some notion 
of gods : many have wrong notions of the gods, 
which may proceed from bad customs, yet all 
allow there is a certain divine nature and energy ; 
nor doth this proceed from conversing together, or 
consent of parties ; it is not an opinion established 
by law : and in every case the consent of all nations 



OF CICERO. 19 

is to be looked on as a law of nature. Who is 
there then that does not lament the loss of his 
friends, principally from imagining them deprived 
of the conveniences of life ? Take away this opi- 
nion, and you remove with it all grief ; for no one 
grieves on his own account. Perhaps we may be 
slightly affected, and uneasy ; but that bitter 
lamentation, and those bewailing tears, have their 
cause from our apprehensions, that he, whom we 
loved, is deprived of the advantages of life, and is 
sensible of it. And we are led to this opinion by 
nature, without learning, or the deductions of 
reason. 

XIV. But the greatest argument is, that na- 
ture herself gives a silent judgment in favour of 
the immortality of the soul, in that all are anxious, 
and greatly so, in what relates to futurity : 

One plants, what future ages shall enjoy, 

as Statius saith in his Synephebi. What has he 
an eye to in this, but that he is interested in pos- 
terity ? Shall the industrious husbandman then 
plant trees, the fruit of which he shall never see ? 
and shall not the great man found laws, institutes, 
a republic ? What doth the procreation of children 
imply ? the continuing a name — adoptions — the 
exactness in writing wills ? what the inscriptions 
on monuments, or elogies? but that our thoughts 
run on futurity? There is no doubt but a judg- 



20 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

merit may be formed of nature in general, from 
those of the best natural dispositions; and what 
is a better natural disposition in man, than those 
discover, who look on themselves born for the pro- 
tection, preservation, and assistance of others? 
Hercules went to heaven ; he never had gone 
thither, had he not, whilst amongst men, secured 
that road to himself. — These are of old date, and 
have, besides, the sanction of religion. 

XV. What, do you imagine so many and 
such great men of our republic, who have sacri- 
ficed their lives for its good, thought that their 
names should not continue beyond their lives ? 
None ever encountered death for their country, 
but under a firm persuasion of immortality ! The- 
mistocles might have lived at his ease : so might 
Epaminondas; and, not to look abroad for in- 
stances and amongst the ancients, I myself might. 
But, I know not how, there adheres to our minds 
a certain presage of future ages ; and this both 
exists most, and appears clearest, in men of the 
best parts, and greatest souls. Take away this, 
and who is so mad as to spend his life amidst toils 
and dangers? I speak of those in power. What 
were the poet's views but to be ennobled after 
death ? Whence then have we, 
Behold old Ennius here, who ers^ 
Thy fathers' great exploits rehears'd. 



OF CICERO. 2 1 

He challenged the reward of glory from those 
whose ancestors he had ennobled. And thus the 
same poet, 

Let none with tears my funeral grace, for I 
Claim from my works an immortality. 

Why do I mention poets ? the very mechanics are 
desirous of fame after death : why did Phidias in- 
clude a model of himself, in the shield of Minerva, 
when he was not allowed to inscribe his name on 
it ? What did our philosophers mean, when they 
put their names to those very books they wrote on 
the contempt of glory ? If, then, universal con- 
sent is the voice of nature, and it is the general 
opinion every where, that those who have quitted 
this life, are still interested in something ; we must 
subscribe to that opinion. And if we think men 
of the greatest abilities and virtue see clearest into 
nature, as her most perfect work ; it is very pro- 
bable, as every great man endeavours most for the 
public good, that there is something he will be 
sensible of after death. 

XVI. But as we naturally think there are 
gods, and what they are, we discover by reason ; 
so, by the consent of nations, we are induced to 
believe, that our souls survive ; but where their 
habitation is, and what they are, must be learned 
from reason ; the want of which' knowledge has 
given rise to the infernals, and birth to those 
fears, which you seem, not without reason, to des- 



22 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

pise: for our bodies falling to the ground, and 
being covered with earth, from whence they are 
said to be interred, have occasioned them to 
imagine that the dead continue, the remainder of 
their existence, under ground ; which opinion of 
theirs has drawn after it many errors ; which the 
poets have increased ; for the theatre, crowded 
with women and children, has been greatly affected 
on hearing these pompous verses, 

Lo ! here I am, who scarce could gain this place, 
Thro* stony mountains, and a dreary waste ; 
Thro' clifts, whose sharpened stones tremendous hung, 
Where dreadful darkness spread itself around : 

and the error prevailed so much, which indeed at 
present seems to me to be removed, that although 
they knew the bodies were burned, yet they 
conceived such things to be done in the infernal 
regions, as could not be executed or imagined 
without a body ; for they could not apprehend, 
how unbodied souls could exist ; and therefore, 
they looked out for some shape or figure. From 
hence all that account of the dead in Homer; 
hence my friend Appius framed his Necromancy ; 
hence the lake of Avemus, in my neighbourhood ; 

From whence the souls of undistinguished shape; 
No mortal blood, rush from the open gate 
Of Acheron, and to this world escape. 

And they must needs have these appearances 
speak, which is not possible, without a tongue, a 



OF CICERO. 23 

palate, jaws, without the help of lungs and sides, 
or without some shape or figure ; for they could 
see nothing by their mind alone, they referred all 
to their eyes. To withdraw the mind from sensual 
objects, and abstract our thoughts from what we are 
accustomed to, is the property of a great genius : 
I am persuaded there were many such in former 
ages : but Pherecydes, the Syrian, is the first on 
record, who said that the souls of men were 
immortal ; he was of great antiquity, in the reign 
of my namesake Tullus. His disciple, Pythagoras, 
greatly confirmed this opinion, who came into Italy, 
in the reign of Tarquin the Proud ; and all that 
country which is called Great Greece, was held by 
him in honour and discipline, and under great 
submission to his authority : and the Pythagorean 
sect Was many ages after in so great credit, that 
all learning was confined to that name. 

XVII. But I return to the ancients: They 
scarce ever gave any reason for their opinion, but 
what could be explained by numbers and charac- 
ters. It is reported of Plato, that he came into 
Italy, to acquaint himself with the Pythagoreans ; 
and that when there, amongst others, he made an 
acquaintance with Archytas and Timaeus, and 
learned from them all the tenets of the Pythago- 
reans : that he not only was of the same opinion 
with Pythagoras, concerning the immortality of 
the soul, but he brought reasons in support of it ; 



24 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

which, if you have nothing to say against it, I 
will pass over, and drop all this hope of immorta- 
lity. A. What, will you leave me, when you 
have raised my expectations so high ? I had rather, 
so help me Hercules, be mistaken with Plato, 
whom I know how much you esteem, and whom I 
admire, from what you say of him, than be in the 
right with them. M. I commend you : for 
indeed, I could myself willingly be mistaken with 
him. Do we then doubt of this as of other things ? 
though I think here is very little room for doubt ; 
for the mathematicians assure us, that the earth is 
placed in the midst of the world, as it were a 
point, which they call a mt ? ov, surrounded by the 
whole heavens : and that such is the nature of 
the four principles of all things, that they have 
equally divided amongst them, the constituents of 
all bodies. That earthly and humid bodies are 
carried at equal angles, by their own propensity 
and weight, into the earth and sea ; the other two 
parts are of fire and air. As the two former are 
carried by their gravity and weight, into the middle 
region of the world ; so these, on the other hand, 
ascend by right lines, into the celestial regions ; 
either naturally endeavouring at the highest place, 
or that lighter bodies are naturally repelled by 
heavier, which being the case, it must evidently 
be, that souls, admitting them to be animals, i. e. 
to breathe, or of the nature of fire, must mount 



OF CICERO. 25 

upwards : but should the soul be a number, 
which it is said to be, with more subtlety than 
clearness ; or that fifth nature, rather without a 
name than not understood ; still it is too pure 
and perfect, not to arrive at a great distance from 
the earth. Something of this sort, then, the soul 
is, that so active a principle should not lie im- 
merged in the heart or brain ; or, as Empedocles 
would have it, in the blood. 

XVIII. We will pass over Dicsearchus, with 
his contemporary and fellow disciple Aristoxenus, 
both indeed men of learning. One of them seems 
never to have been affected with grief, as he could 
not perceive that he had a soul ; the other is so 
pleased with his musical compositions, that he 
endeavours to show an analogy betwixt them and 
souls. We may understand harmony to arise 
from the intervals of sounds, whose various com- 
positions occasion many harmonies ; but I do not 
see how a disposition of members, and the figure 
of a body without a soul, can occasion harmony ; 
he had better, learned as he is, leave this to his 
master Aristotle, and follow his trade, as a musi- 
cian ; good advice is given him in that Greek 
proverb, 

Apply your talents, where you best are skilled. 

I will have nothing at all to do with that fortuitous 
concourse of individual light, and round cor- 
puscles, notwithstanding Democritus insists on 



26 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

their being warm, and having breath, i. e. life. 
But this soul, should it consist of either of the 
four principles, from which we deduce all things 
is of inflamed air, as seems particularly to have 
been the opinion of Panaetius, and must neces- 
sarily mount upwards ; for air and fire have no 
tendency downwards, and always ascend : so 
should they be dissipated, that must be at some 
distance from the earth ; but should they remain, 
and preserve their state, it is clearer still that they 
must be carried heavenward ; and this gross and 
concrete air, which is nearest the earth, must be 
divided and broke by them ; for the soul is 
warmer, or rather hotter than that air, which I 
just now called gross and concrete ; which is 
evident from this, that our bodies, compounded of 
the terrene kind of principles, grow warm by the 
heat of the soul. 

XIX. I add, that the soul may the easier 
escape from this air, which I have often named, 
and break through it ; because nothing is swifter 
than the soul ; no swiftness is comparable to that 
of the soul ; which, should it remain uncorrupt, 
and without alteration, must necessarily be car- 
ried with that velocity, as to penetrate and divide 
all this region, where clouds, and rain, and winds 
are formed ; which by means of exhalations from 
the earth, is moist and dark : which region, when 
the soul has once got above, and falls in with, 



OF CICERO. 27 

and perceives a nature like its own, being com- 
pounded of thin air, and a moderate solar heat, it 
rests with these fires, and endeavours no higher 
flight. For when it has attained a lightness and 
heat like its own, it moves no more, balanced as 
it were, between two equal weights. That then 
is its natural seat where it has penetrated to 
something like itself; where, wanting nothing 
else, it may be supported and maintained by the 
aliments, which nourish and maintain the stars. 
As we are used to be incited to all sorts of desires, 
by the stimulus of the body, and the more so, as 
we envy those who are in possession of what we 
long for, we shall certainly be happy, when with 
this body we get rid of these desires and provoca- 
tives ; which is our case at present, when, dis- 
missing all other cares, we curiously examine and 
look into any thing ; which we shall then do with 
greater ease ; and employ ourselves entirely in 
viewing and considering things ; because there is 
naturally in our minds a certain insatiable desire 
of seeing truth ; and the very region itself, where 
we shall arrive, as it gives us a more intuitive 
view of celestial things, will raise our desires after 
knowledge. For this beauty of the heavens, 
even here on earth, gave birth to that philosophy, 
which Theophrastus calls an inheritance, both 
from father and mother ; greatly raised by a 
desire of knowledge. But they will in a par- 



28 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

ticular manner enjoy this, who, whilst inhabitants 
of this world, enveloped in darkness, were de- 
sirous of looking into these things with the eye of 
their mind. 

XX. For, if they now think they have at- 
tained something, who have seen the mouth of the 
Pontus, and those streights which were passed by 
the ship called Argo, because, 

From Argos, she did chosen men convey, 
Bound, to fetch back the golden fleece their prey. 

Or they, who saw the streights of the ocean, 

Where the swift waves divide the neighbouring shores, 
Of Europe, and of Afric. 

What kind of sight, then, do you imagine that to 
be, when the whole earth is viewed ? not only in 
its position, form, and boundaries ; those parts of 
it that are habitable, but those also that lie cul- 
tivated, through the extremities of heat and cold : 
for what we now see we do not view with our 
eyes ; for body itself has no sensation : but as 
the naturalists, nay, even the physicians assure 
us, who have opened our bodies, and examined 
them, there are certain perforated canals, from 
the seat of the soul to the eyes, ears, and nose ; 
so that frequently, when either prevented by me- 
ditation, or the force of some bodily disorder, we 
neither hear nor see, though our eyes and ears 
are open, and in good condition ; so that we may 
easily apprehend that it is the soul that sees and 



OF CICERO. 29 

hears ; not those parts, which are but windows to 
the soul ; by means of which the soul can per- 
ceive nothing, unless she is on the spot, and 
exerts herself. How shall we account, that by 
the same power of thinking, we comprehend the 
most difficult things ; as colour, taste, heat, smell, 
and sound ? which the soul could never know by 
her five messengers, unless every thing was re- 
ferred to it, and she was sole judge of all. And 
we shall certainly discover these things, clearer, 
and more perfect, when the soul, disengaged 
from the body, shall arrive there, where nature 
leads ; for at present, notwithstanding nature 
has contrived, with the greatest skill, those canals 
which lead from the body to the soul ; yet are 
they, in some way or other, stopped up with 
concrete and terrene bodies : but when we shall 
be nothing but soul, nothing will interfere, to 
prevent our seeing every thing as it is. 

XXI. It is true, I might expatiate, did the 
subject require it, on the many and various ob- 
jects the soul will be entertained with in those 
heavenly regions ; when I reflect on which, I am 
apt to wonder at the boldness of some philoso- 
phers, who are so struck with the knowledge of 
nature, as to thank, in an exulting manner, the 
first inventor of natural philosophy, and reverence 
him as a god : for they declare themselves freed, 
by his means, from the greatest tyrants, a per- 



30 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

petual terror, and a fear that molested them, by 
night and day. What is this dread ? this fear ? 
what old woman is there so weak as to fear these 
things, which you, forsooth, had you not been ac- 
quainted with physics, would stand in awe of? 

The hallow'd roofs of Acheron, the dread 
Of Orcus, and the pale sejour of the dead. 

And doth it become a philosopher to boast that 
he is not afraid of these, and has discovered them 
to be false ? Hence we may know how acute 
they were by nature, who, without learning, had 
attained to these things. They have gained, I 
know not what, who have learned, that when 
they die, they shall perish entirely ; which being 
admitted, for I say nothing to it, what is there 
agreeable or glorious in it ? Not that I see any 
reason why Pythagoras' and Plato's opinion might 
not be true : but should Plato have assigned no 
reason, (observe how much I esteem the man,) 
the weight of his authority would have borne 
me down ; but he has brought so many reasons, 
that, to me he appears to have endeavoured to 
convince others ; himself he certainly did. 

XXII. But there are many who labour the 
other side of the question, and condemn souls 
to death, as capitally convicted ; nor have they any 
better argument, against the eternity of the soul, 
than their not being able to conceive a soul with- 
out a body ; as if they could really conceive, what 



OF CICERO. 3 1 

it is in the body ; its form, size, and seat : that 
were they able to have a full view of all that is 
now hid from them in a living body, the soul 
would be discernible by them ; or, is it of so fine 
a contexture as to evade their sight ? Let those 
consider this, who deny they can form any idea 
of the soul, without the body, if they can conceive 
what it is in the body. As to my own part, 
when I reflect on the nature of the soul, I am 
more distressed to conceive what it is in the 
body, a place that doth not belong to it, than 
what it is when it leaves it, and is arrived at 
the free aether, its own habitation, as it were. 
Could we apprehend nothing but what we see, 
certainly we could form no notion of God, nor of 
the divine soul, freed from body. Dicaearchus 
indeed, and Aristoxenus, because it was hard 
to understand the soul, and its properties, as- 
serted there was no soul. It is indeed the most 
difficult thing imaginable, to discern the soul, by 
the soul. And this, doubtless, is the meaning of 
the precept of Apollo, which advises every one to 
know himself. I do not apprehend his intention 
to have been, that we should inform ourselves of 
our members, our stature, and make ; nor doth 
self imply our bodies ;, nor do I, who speak thus 
to you, address myself to your body: when, 
therefore, he saith, " Know yourself," he saith this, 
inform yourself of the nature of your soul ; for the 



32 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

body is but a kind of vessel, or receptacle of the 
soul : whatever your soul doth, is your own act. 
To know the soul, then, unless it had been divine, 
would not have been a precept of that excellent 
wisdom, as to be attributed to a god; but should 
the soul not know what itself is, will you say 
that it doth not perceive itself to be ? that it has 
motion ? on which is founded that reason of 
Plato's, which is explained by Socrates, in Phae- 
drus, and inserted by me, in my sixth book of the 
Republic. 

XXIII. That which is always moved, is eter- 
nal ; but that which gives motion to another, and 
is moved itself from some other cause, when that 
motion ceases, must necessarily cease to exist. 
That, then alone, which is self-moved, because it 
is never forsaken by itself, must continue to be 
always moved. Besides, it is the fountain and 
beginning of motion to every thing else ; but 
whatever is first, has no beginning, for all things 
arise from that first ; itself cannot owe its rise to 
any thing else ; for it would not be the first, had 
it proceeded from any thing else. If it had no 
beginning, it never will have end ; for the original 
being extinguished, itself cannot be restored from 
any thing else, nor produce any thing from itself; 
inasmuch as all things must necessarily arise from 
that first cause. Thus it comes about, that the 
beginning of motion must arise from itself, because 



OF CICERO. 33 

it is itself, moved by itself ; and that can neither 
have a beginning, nor cease to be ; otherwise 
the whole heavens would be overset, and all 
nature stand still, nor be able to acquire any 
force, by the impulse of which, it might be first 
set in motion. Seeing then it is clear, that what- 
ever moves itself, is eternal ; can there be any 
doubt that the soul is so ? for that is inanimate, 
which is moved by an external force ; but every 
animal is moved by an interior force, and its own. 
For this is the peculiar nature and power of the 
soul ; which, if it be the property of the soul alone 
to have self-motion, certainly it never had a begin- 
ing, and is eternal. Should all the lower order of 
philosophers, for so I think they may be called, 
who dissent from Plato and Socrates, and that 
school, unite their force ; they never would be able 
to explain any thing so elegantly, nor even- under- 
stand how artfully this conclusion is drawn. The 
soul then perceives itself to have motion, and 
with that perception is sensible that it is moved, 
by its own, and not the agency of another ; and 
it is impossible that it should ever forsake itself; 
from whence arises eternity, unless you have some- 
thing to say against it. A. I should myself be very 
well pleased, not to have a thought arise in my mind 
against it, I am so much inclined to that opinion. 

XXIV. M. I appeal to you, if these argu- 
ments that prove there is something divine in the 



54 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

soul, are not as strong ? which divine properties, 
could I account how they begun, I might also 
how they might cease to be ; for I think I can 
account how the blood, bile, phlegm, bones, 
nerves, veins, all the limbs, and shape of the 
whole body, were concreted and made; nay, the 
soul itself, were there nothing more in it than a 
principle of life, might be put upon the same 
footing as a vine or tree, and accounted for as 
naturally ; for these, as we say, live. Besides, 
were desires and aversions all that belonged to 
the soul, they are but in common with the beasts ; 
but it has, in the first place, memory, and that so 
infinite, as to retain numberless things, which 
Plato would have to be a recollection of a 
former life ; for in that book which is inscribed 
Menon, Socrates asks a child some questions 
in geometry, of measuring a square ; his an- 
swers are such as a child would xiiake, and yet 
his questions are so easy, that, answering them, 
one by one, he is as ready, as if he had learned 
geometry. From whence Socrates would infer, 
that learning implies only recollection, which he 
explains more acurately, in the discourse he held 
the very day he died ; for any one entirely illite- 
rate, to answer a question well, that is proposed 
to him, manifestly shows that he doth not learn it 
then, but recollects it by his memory. Nor is it 
accountable any other way, how children come to 






OF CICERO. 35 

have notions of so many and such important 
things, as are implanted, or as it were sealed up 
in their minds; which the Greeks call common 
notions, unless the soul before it entered the body 
had been well stored with knowledge; for he 
holds that not to be, which has a beginning and 
ending ; and that alone to be, which is always the 
same ; as what he calls an idea, we a quality. 
The soul, then, shut up in the body, could not 
discover, but brought with it, what it knows : so 
that we are no longer surprised at its extensive 
knowledge ; nor doth the soul clearly discover its 
ideas at its first resort to this troublesome and 
unusual dwelling ; but after having refreshed and 
recollected itself, it then by its memory recovers 
them ; therefore to learn, implies only to recollect. 
But I am in a particular manner surprised at me- 
mory ; for what is that by which we remember ? 
what is its force ? what its nature ? I am not 
enquiring how great a memory Simonides may be 
said to have had ; how great Theodectes ? how 
great that Cineas, who came ambassador here 
from Pyrrhus ? or lately, Charmadas ; or very 
lately, Sceptius Metrodorus ; how great our Hor- 
tensius : I speak of common memory, and princi- 
pally of those, who are employed in any consider- 
able study or art, of the capacity of whose minds 
it is hard to judge, they remembered so many 
things. 



36 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

XXV. Should you ask what this leads to ? 
I think we may understand what that power is, 
(for Plato constantly maintains the body to be 
nothing) and whence we have it. It certainly 
proceeds neither from the heart, nor blood, nor 
brain, nor atoms ; whether it be air or fire, I 
know not, nor am I, like those, ashamed to own 
where I am ignorant, that I am so. Were it 
possible to determine in any doubtful affair, I 
would swear that the soul, be it air or fire, is 
divine. What ? I beseech you, can you imagine 
so great a power of memory to be sown in, or be 
of the composition of earth? or this dark and 
gloomy atmosphere? Though you cannot appre- 
hend what it is, yet you see what kind of thing it 
is, or if not that, yet you certainly see how great 
it is. What then ? shall we imagine, there is a 
kind of measure in the soul, into which, as into a 
vessel, all we remember is poured ? that indeed is 
absurd. How shall we form any idea of the 
bottom, or any of such a shape or fashion of the 
soul? or how any at all of its holding so much? 
Shall we imagine the soul to receive impressions 
like wax, and memory to be marks of the impres- 
sions made on the soul? What are the cha- 
racters of words, what of things themselves? or 
where is that prodigious immensity as to give 
impressions to so many things? What, lastly, is 

that power which discovers, and is called inven- 



OF CICERO. 37 

tion ? Doth he seem to be compounded of this 
earthly, mortal, and perishing nature, who first 
invented names for every thing, which with Py- 
thagoras is the highest pitch of wisdom ? or he, 
who collected the dispersed inhabitants of the 
world, and called them together into social life ? 
or he, who confined the sounds of the voice, which 
are infinite, to the marks of a few letters ? or who 
observed the courses of the planets, their progres- 
sive motions, their laws? These were all great 
men ; but they were greater still, who invented 
food, raiment, houses ; who introduced civility 
amongst us, and armed us against the wild beasts ; 
by whom being civilized and polished, we pro- 
ceeded from the necessaries of life, to its embel- 
lishments. For we have provided great entertain- 
ments for the ears, by inventing and qualifying 
the variety and nature of sounds. We view the 
stars, as well those that are fixed, as those which 
are called improperly wandering. The soul that is 
acquainted with their revolutions and motions, 
acquaints itself that it is like his, who devised 
those stars in the heavens : for when Archimedes 
described in a sphere the motions of the moon, 
sun, and five planets, he did the same as Plato's 
god, in his Timasus, who made the world; he ad- 
justed motions of different slowness, and velocities, 
in one circle. Now, allowing that what we see 
in the world, could not be effected without a 



38 THE TUSCUL AN DISPUTATIONS 

god, Archimedes could not have imitated the 
same motions, in his sphere, without a divine 
soul. 

XXVI. To me, indeed, it appears, that those 
studies which are more known, and in greater 
esteem, are not without some divine energy : so 
that I scarce think a poet who produces an 
approved poem, to be without some divine im- 
pulse on his mind ; or that oratory, abounding 
with sonorous words, and fruitful sentences, could 
flow thus, without some greater force. What 
then is philosophy ? which is the parent of all arts, 
but as Plato saith, a gift, as I express it, an inven- 
tion of the gods ? This taught us first, the wor- 
ship of them : then justice, which arises from 
men's being formed into society : next modesty, 
and elevation of soul. Philosophy dispersed dark- 
ness from our souls, as it were from our eyes, 
enabling us to see all things that are above or 
below ; the beginning, end, and middle of every 
thing. I am convinced entirely, that what could 
effect so many, and such great things, must be 
divine. For what is a memory of words and 
things ? what also invention ? even that than 
which nothing greater can be conceived in a god ! 
for I do not imagine the gods to be delighted with 
nectar and ambrosia, or with Juventas presenting 
them with a cup ; nor do I pay any attention to 
Homer, who saith that Ganymede was carried 



OF CICERO. 39 

away by the gods, on account of his beauty, 
to give Jove his drink. Too weak reasons for 
doing Laomedon such injury ! These were mere 
inventions of Homer, who gave his gods the im- 
perfections of men. I wish he had given men the 
perfections of the gods ! those perfections I mean 
of uninterrupted health, wisdom, invention, me- 
mory. Therefore the soul is, as I say, divine ; or 
as Euripides more boldly expresses it, a god. 
And thus, if the divinity be air or fire, the soul of 
man is the same : for as that celestial nature has 
nothing earthly or humid, so the soul of man is 
also void of all these : but if it is of that certain 
fifth nature, first introduced by Aristotle, both 
gods and souls are of the same. 

XX VII. As this is my opinion, I have ex- 
plained it in these very words, in my book of 
Consolation. The origin of the soul of man is 
not to be found in any thing earthy, for there is 
nothing in the soul mixt or concrete, or that 
has any appearance of being formed or made 
out of the earth; nothing even humid, airy, 
fiery ; for what is there in such like natures, that 
has the power of memory, understanding, or 
thought ? that can recollect the past ; foresee 
future things ; and comprehend the present ? 
which are divine properties alone ; nor can we 
discover whence men could have these, but from 
God. There is therefore a peculiar nature and 



40 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

power in the soul, distinct from those natures, 
more known and familiar to us. Whatever then 
that is, which thinks, which has understanding, 
volition, and a principle of life, is heavenly and 
divine, and on that account must necessarily be 
eternal : nor can God himself, who is k nown to 
us, be conceived otherwise, than a soul free and 
unembarrassed, distinct from all mortal concretion, 
acquainted with every thing, and giving motion to 
it, itself endued with perpetual motion. 

XXVIII. Of this kind and nature is the soul 
of man. Should you be asked then, what this 
soul is ? where is your own ? or what is it ? what 
answer can I make ? If I have not faculties for 
knowing all that I could desire to know, you will 
allow me, I hope, to make use of those I have. 
The soul is not equal to the discerning of itself ; 
yet, the soul, like the eye, though it has no reflex 
view of itself, sees other things : it doth not see, 
(which is of least consequence) its own shape ; 
perhaps not ; though it possibly may ; but we 
will pass that by : but it certainly sees that it has 
vigour, sagacity, memory, motion, velocity ; these 
are all great, divine, eternal properties. What its 
appearance is, or where it dwells, is not matter 
of enquiry. As when we behold, first the lucid 
appearance of the heavens ; then, the vast velocity 
of its revolutions, beyond the imagination of our 
thought ; the vicissitudes of nights and days ; 



OF CICERO. 4 1 

the four-fold division of the seasons, adapted 
to the ripening of the fruits of the earth, 
and the temperature of our bodies ; and then 
look up to the sun, the moderator and governor 
of all these ; view the moon, by the increase and 
decrease of its light, marking as it were, and ap- 
pointing our holy days ; and see the five planets, 
carried in the same circle, divided into twelve 
parts, preserving invariably the same courses, with 
dissimilar motions amongst themselves ; and the 
nightly appearance of the heaven, adorned on all 
sides with stars ; then, the globe of the earth, 
raised above the sea, placed in the centre of the 
universe, inhabited and cultivated in its two oppo- 
site extremities ; one of them, the place of our 
habitation, situated to the north pole, under the 

seven stars : 

Where the cold northern blasts, with horrid sound, 
Harden to ice the snowy covered ground. 

The other, the south pole, unknown to us, called 
by the Greeks aairv$w* : other parts, uncultivated, 
because either frozen with cold, or burnt up 
with heat ; but where we dwell, it never fails in 
its season, 

To yield a placid sky, to bid the trees 
Assume the lively verdure of their leaves : 
The vine to bud, and, joyful in its shoots, 
Foretell the approaching vintage of its fruits ; 
The ripened corn to sing, whilst all around 
Full riv'lets glide ; and flowers deck the ground. 



42 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

Then the multitude of cattle, part for food, part 
for tilling the ground, others for carriage, for 
clothing ; and man himself made as it were on 
purpose to contemplate the heavens and the gods, 
and to pay adoration to them ; lastly, the whole 
earth, and wide extending seas, given to man's 
use. 

XXIX. When we view these, and numberless 
other things, can we doubt that something pre- 
sides over these, or made them ? if they are made, 
as is the opinion of Plato : or if, as Aristotle 
thinks, they are eternal ; so great a work, and so 
great a blessing, cannot be supposed, without a 
director. Thus, though you see not the soul of 
man, as you see not the Deity ; yet, as you 
acknowledge a God, from his works, so own the 
divine power of the soul, from its remembering 
things, its invention, the quickness of its motion, 
and from every charm of virtue. But where is it 
seated ? say you. In my opinion it is in the 
head, and I can bring you reasons for that opi- 
nion ; but of those elsewhere. At present, let the 
soul reside where it will, you certainly have one 
in you. Should you ask what its nature is ? It 
has one peculiarly its own ; but admitting it to be 
of fire, or air, it doth not affect the question ; 
only observe this, as you are convinced there is a 
God, though you are ignorant where he resides, 
and what shape he is of ; so you should be as- 



OF CICERO. 43 

sured you have a soul, though you cannot satisfy 
yourself of the place of its residence, nor the 
fashion of it. In our knowledge of the soul, unless 
we are grossly ignorant in physics, we cannot but 
be satisfied that it has nothing but what is simple, 
unmixed, uncompounded ; which being admitted, 
it cannot be separated, nor divided, dispersed or 
parted, and therefore cannot perish ; for to perish 
implies parting asunder, a division, a disunion of 
those parts which, whilst it subsisted, were held 
together by some band. Induced by these and 
such like reasons, Socrates neither looked out for 
any body to plead for him, when accused, nor 
begged any favour from his judges, but main- 
tained a manly freedom, not the effect of pride, 
but of the true greatness of his soul ; and on the 
last day of his life, he held much discourse on 
this subject; and a few days before he refused 
his liberty, when he might have been easily freed 
from his confinement, and when he had hold, in a 
manner, of that deadly cup, he spoke, with an air 
of one not forced to die, but as ascending into 
heaven. 

XXX. For so he thought himself to be, and 
thus he harangued : " That there are two ways, 
" and that the souls of men, at their departure 
" from the body, took different roads ; for those 
" that were polluted with vices, that are common 
" to men, and had given themselves up entirely 



44 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

"to unclean desires, blinded by which, they had 
" habituated themselves to all manner of de- 
" baucheries, or had laid detestable schemes for 
" the ruin of their country, took a road wide 
"of that which led to the assembly of the gods : 
" but they who had preserved themselves perfect 
" and chaste, and free from the slightest con- 
" tagion with the body, and had kept themselves 
" always at a distance from it ; and whilst on 
" earth, had conformed to the life of the gods ; 
" found the return easy to those, from whom they 
" came." Therefore he relates, that all good and 
wise men should take example from the swans, 
who are, not without reason, sacred to Apollo ; 
but particularly, because they seem to have re- 
ceived the gift of divination from him, by which, 
foreseeing how happy it is to die, they leave this 
world with singing and joy. Nor can any one 
doubt of this, unless it happens to us who think 
intensely of the soul, as is common to those who 
look earnestly at the setting sun, to lose the 
sight of it entirely : so the mind's eye viewing 
itself, sometimes grows dull, and for that reason 
we become remiss in our contemplation. Thus 
our reasoning is carried like one sailing on the 
immense ocean, harassed with doubts and anxie- 
ties, not knowing how to proceed, but measuring 
back again those dangerous tracts he had passed. 
But these reflections are of long standing, and 



OF CICERO. 45 

borrowed from the Greeks. Even Cato left this 
world, as pleased with an opportunity of dying ; 
for that God who presides in us, forbids our de- 
parture hence without his leave. But when God 
himself shall give a just cause, as formerly to 
Socrates, lately to Cato, and often to many 
others ; certainly every man of sense would gladly 
exchange this darkness, for that light; not that 
he would forcibly break from the chains that held 
him, for that would be against law ; but walk 
out, like one discharged by a magistrate, or some 
lawful authority. The whole life of a philoso- 
pher is, as the same saith, a meditation on 
death. 

XXXI. For what do we else, when we call off 
our minds from pleasure, i. e. from our attention 
to the body, from the managing our estates, 
which we do merely on the body's account ; when 
from duties of a public nature, or from all other 
employs whatsoever, what, I say, do we else, but 
invite the soul to reflect on itself? oblige it 
to converse with itself, and break off its acquaint- 
ance with the body ? to separate the soul from 
the body ; then, what is it but to learn to die ? 
Wherefore, let me persuade you, to meditate on 
this, and break off your connexion with the body, 
i. e. learn to die. This is to be in heaven whilst 
on earth ; and when we shall be carried thither 
freed from these chains, our souls will make their 



46 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

way with more ease : for they who are always 
linked thus with the body, even when disengaged 
make very slow advances, like those who have 
worn fetters many years ; which when we shall 
arrive at, we shall then live indeed, for this 
present life is a death, which I could lament, 
if I might. A. You have lamented it sufficiently 
in your book of Consolation; which, when I 
read, there is nothing I desire more than to 
leave these things : but that desire encreases, 
by what I have just now heard. M. The time 
will come, and that soon, whether you hang 
back or press forward : for time flies. Death 
is so far from being an evil, as it lately appeared 
to you, that I suspect, that every thing is a 
greater evil to man ; or nothing a more desir- 
able good ; if we become thereby either gods 
ourselves, or companions of the gods. A, This 
will not do, as there are some who will not 
allow of it. M. But I will not leave off dis- 
cussing this point, till I have convinced you, 
that death can upon no account be an evil. 
A, How can it, after what I have known? M, 
Do you ask how it can ? there are such swarms 
of opponents ; not only Epicureans, whom I 
regard very little, but I know not how, almost 
every man of letters : but my favourite Dicaear- 
chus, is very strenuous in opposing the immor- 
tality of the soul : for he has written three books, 



OF CICERO. 47 

which are entitled Lesbiacs, because the discourse 
was held at Mitylene, in which he would prove 
that souls are mortal. Indeed, the Stoics give 
us as long credit, as the life of a raven; they 
allow the soul to exist a great while, but are 
against its eternity. 

XXXII. Are you willing to hear, even allow- 
ing this, why death cannot be an evil ? A. As 
you please ; but no one shall force me from my 
immortality. M. I commend you indeed for 
that; though we should not depend on our 
opinions ; for we are frequently disturbed by 
some subtle conclusion ; we give way and change 
our opinions in things that are more evident; 
but in this there is some obscurity. Should any 
thing of this kind happen, it is well to be on 
our guard. A. You are right in that, but I 
will provide against any accident. M. Have 
you any objection to dismissing our friends the 
Stoics ? I mean those, who allow that souls exist 
after they leave the body, but not always. A, 
Yes, those who admit of the only difficulty in 
this case, that souls may exist independent of 
body ; but reject that, which is not only very 
probable, but the consequence of their own con- 
cession, that if they may exist some time, they 
may so for ever. M. You take it right; that 
is the very thing : shall we give therefore any 
credit to Panastius, when he dissents from his 



48 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

Plato? whom he every where calls divine, the 
wisest, the most honest of men, the Homer of 
Philosophers ; whom he opposes, in the single 
opinion of the soul's immortality : For he main- 
tains what no body denies, that every thing which 
is generated will perish ; that even souls are ge- 
nerated, appears from the resemblance to those 
that begot them ; which is as apparent in the 
turn of their minds, as their bodies. But he 
brings another reason ; that there is nothing 
which is sensible of pain, but may also fall ill ; 
but whatever is subject to disorders, is subject to 
death ; the soul is sensible of pain, therefore it 
may perish. 

XXXIII. These may be refuted ; for they 
proceed from his not knowing, that on the subject 
of the immortality of the soul, he speaks of the 
mind, which should be free of all turbid motion ; 
not of those parts in which those disorders, anger 
and lust, have their seat ; which he, whom he op- 
poses, imagines to be distinct and separate from 
the mind. Now this remsemblance is more re- 
markable in beasts, whose souls are void of 
reason. But the likeness in men consists more in 
their persons ; and it is of no little consequence in 
what bodies the soul is lodged; for there are 
many things which depend on the body, that 
give an edge to the soul, many which blunt it. 
Aristotle indeed saith, that all men of parts are 



OF CICERO. 49 

melancholy ; so that I should not have been 
displeased to have been somewhat duller than 
I am. He instances in many, and, as if it were 
matter of fact, brings his reasons for it : but if 
the power of those things that proceed from 
the body, be so great as to influence the mind 
(for they are the things, whatever they are, that 
occasion this likeness), it doth not necessarily 
imply, that a similitude of souls should be born. 
I have done with these likenesses. I wish Panae- 
tius could be here ; he lived with Africanus ; I 
would inquire of him which of his family, the ne- 
phew of Africanus's brother was like ? possibly 
in person like his father ; in his manners, so like 
the most abandoned, that none was more so. 
Who was the grandson of P. Crassus like, that 
wise and eloquent man, inferior to none ? Or the 
relations and sons of many other excellent men, 
whose names there is no occasion to mention? 
But what are we doing ? Have we forgotten, that 
our purpose was, when we had sufficiently spoke 
to the immortality of the soul, to evince, that, 
should the souls perish, there could be, even then, 
no evil in death ? A. I remembered it very well ; 
but I had no dislike to your rambling a little 
from your purpose, whilst you were talking of the 
soul's immortality. 

XXXIV. M. I perceive you have sublime 
thoughts, and would willingly reach heaven ; I 



50 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

am not without hopes that such may be our fate. 
But admit what they assert ; that the souls do 
not remain after death. A. Should it be so, I see 
ourselves deprived of the hopes of a happier life. 
M, But what is there of evil in that opinion ? let 
the soul perish as the body : is there any pain, or 
indeed any feeling at all in the body after death ? 
no one indeed asserts that ; though Epicurus 
charges Democritus with saying so ; but the dis- 
ciples of Democritus deny it. No sense therefore 
remains in the soul ; for the soul is no where ; 
where then is the evil? for there is nothing but 
these two. Is it because the separation of the 
soul and body cannot be effected without pain ? 
but should that be granted, how small is that ? 
yet I think that is false ; and that it is very often 
without any sense, sometimes even with pleasure* 
and the whole is very trifling, whatever it is, for 
it is instantaneous. What makes us uneasy, or 
rather, gives us pain, is the leaving all the good 
things of life. Consider, if I might not more 
properly say, the evil ; what reason is there then 
to bewail the life of man ? and yet I might, with 
very good reason; but what occasion is there, 
when I labour to prove that none are miserable 
after death; to make life more miserable, by 
lamenting over it ? I have done that in the book 
I wrote, to comfort myself as well as I could. If 
then our inquiry is after truth, death withdraws 



OF CICERO. 31 

us from evil, not from good. This is indeed so 
copiously handled by Hegesias, the Cyrenian, 
that he is said to have been forbid by Ptolemy 
from publishing them in the schools, because 
some who heard him, made away with themselves. 
There is too an epigram of Callimachus, on 
Cleombrotus of Ambracia ; who, without any 
misfortune befalling him, as he saith, threw him- 
self from a wall into the sea, on reading a book 
of Plato's. The book I mentioned of Hegesias, is 
on men's starving themselves ; written on account 
of somebody who took that method to get rid of 
life, but, being prevented by his friends, he reckons 
up to them the miseries of human life : I might 
do the same, though not so fully as he, who 
thinks it not worth any man's while to live. I 
pass over others. Was it even worth my while, 
for, had I died before I was deprived of the com- 
forts and honours of my own family, and what 
I received from my public services, death would 
have taken me from the evils of life, not its 
blessings ? 

XXXV. Propose therefore any one, who never 
knew distress ; who never received a blow from 
fortune : imagine that Metellus, who was honoured 
with four sons ; but Priam had fifty, seventeen of 
which were legitimate : Fortune had the same 
power over both, though she exercised it but on 
one : for Metellus was laid on his funeral pile by 



52 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

many sons and daughters, male and female rela- 
tions : but Priam fell by the hand of an enemy, after 
having fled to the altar, deprived of so great a 
progeny. Had he died before the ruin of his 
kingdom, his sons alive, 

With all his mighty wealth elate, 
Under rich canopies of state : 

would he then have been taken from good or 
evil ? It might seem at that time, from good ; yet 
surely, that would have been to his advantage ; 
nor should we have had these mournful verses, 

[ Lo ! these all perish'd in one flaming- pile ; 
The foe old Priam did of life beguile, 
And with his blood, thy altar, Jove, defile. 

As if any thing better could have happened to 
him at that time, than to lose his life so ; which 
had it fallen out sooner, would have prevented 
those consequences; or at least he would have 
been insensible of them. The case of our friend 
Pompey was something better ; when he fell 
sick at Naples, the Neapolitans put crowns on 
their heads, as did those of Puteoli ; the people 
flocked from the country to congratulate him. It 
is a Grecian custom, and a foolish one ; yet it is a 
sign of good fortune. But the question is, had he 
died, would he have been taken from good or evil? 
Certainly from evil. He would not have been en- 
gaged in a war with his brother-in-law ; he would 
not have taken up arms before he was prepared ; 



OF CICERO. ,53 

he had not left his own house, nor fled from Italy ; 
he had not, after the loss of his army, fell unarmed 
into the hands of his enemies, and been put into 
chains by them : his children had not been de- 
stroyed ; nor his whole fortune in the possession 
of the conquerors ; who, had he died at that time, 
had died in all his glory ; who, by that delay of 
death, into what great and terrible misfortunes 
did he fall? 

XXXVI. These things are avoided by death, 
which though they should never happen, there is a 
possibility they may ; but it never comes into 
men's heads, that such things may befall them. 
Every one thinks to be as happy as Metellus ; as 
if the number of the happy exceeded that of the 
miserable ; as if there was any certainty in human 
affairs ; as if there were more rational foundations 
for hope than fear. But should we grant them 
even this, that we are by death deprived of good 
things ; must the dead therefore want the good 
things of life, and be miserable on that account ? 
they must necessarily say so. Can he, who is 
not, want any thing ? To want^has a melancholy 
sound, and has its force from hence ; he had, but 
has not ; he desires, requires/wants. Such are, I 
suppose, the distresses of one to whom something 
is wanting. Doth he want eyes ? to be blind, is 
misery. Is he in want of children ? not to have 
them, is misery. This is something with the 



54 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

living, but the dead are neither in want of the 
blessings of life, nor life itself; I speak of the 
dead as not existing. But would any say of us, 
who do exist, that we want horns or wings 1 
Certainly not. Should it be asked, why not ? the 
answer would be, that not to have what neither 
custom nor nature has fitted you for, would not 
imply a want of them, though you were sensible 
you had them not. This argument should be 
pressed over and over again, that being estab- 
lished, which if souls are mortal, there can be no 
dispute about; I mean, that the destruction of 
them by death is so entire, as to remove even the 
least suspicion of any sense remaining. This 
then being well grounded and established, we 
must correctly define what the term, to want, 
means ; that there may be no mistake in the 
word. To want, then, signifies this ; to be with- 
out that, you would be glad to have ; for inclina- 
tion for any thing is implied in the word want ; 
excepting when we say in a different sense of the 
word, that a fever is wanting to any one. For it 
admits of a different interpretation, when you are 
without a certain thing, and are sensible you are 
without it ; but yet can easily dispense with 
your not having it. You cannot apply this expres- 
sion to the dead, that they want ; or that 
they lament on that account. This is said, 
that they want a good, which is an evil to 



OF CICERO. 55 

them. But a living man doth not want a good, 
unless he is distressed without it; and yet, we 
may understand, how any man alive may want 
a kingdom. When I assert this of you, I cannot 
use too much art in expressing myself : the case 
is different with regard to Tarquin, when he was 
driven from his kingdom : but quite incomprehen- 
sible, as to the dead. For to want, implies to be 
sensible ; but the dead are insensible ; therefore 
the dead can be in no want. 

XXXVII. But what occasion is there to philo- 
sophize here, when philosophy is so little concerned 
in it? How often have not only our generals, 
but whole armies, rushed on certain death ? which, 
were it to be feared, L. Brutus had not fell in fight, 
to prevent the return of that tyrant he had ex- 
pelled : Decius the father, had not been slain in 
fighting with the Latins : nor had his son, when 
engaged with the Etruscans ; or, his nephew with 
Pyrrhus, exposed themselves to the enemy's darts. 
Spain had not seen the Scipios fall in one cam- 
paign, fighting for their country ; the plains of 
Cannse, Paulus and Geminus ; Venusia, Marcel- 
lus ; the Latins, Albinus, nor the Lucani Grac- 
chus. But are any of these miserable now ? nay, 
not even then, after they had breathed their last : 
nor can any one be miserable after he has lost all 
sense. But as to that, that it is afflicting to be 
without sense ! it would be so, if the meaning was 



56 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

that any one was really in want of it, but as it is 
evident there can be nothing in that, which has no 
existence ; what can there be afflicting in that 
which can neither want, nor be sensible? We 
should have had this over too often, but that here 
lies all that the soul shudders at, from the fear of 
death. For whoever can clearly apprehend, 
which is as manifest as the light ; that when both 
soul and body are consumed, and there is a total 
destruction ; that which was an animal, becomes 
nothing; will clearly see, that there is no dif- 
ference between a Hippocentaur, which never had 
existence, and king Agamemnon ; and that M. 
Camillus is no more concerned about this present 
civil war, than I was at the sacking of Rome, 
when he was in being. Why then should 
Camillus be affected with the thoughts of these 
things happening three hundred and fifty years 
after ? And why should I be uneasy at the thoughts 
of some nation possessing itself of this city, ten 
thousand years hence ? Because so great is our 
regard for our country, as not to be measured by 
our own feeling, but by the actual safety of it. 

XXXVIII. Death then, which threatens us 
daily, from a thousand accidents, and by the very 
shortness of life cannot be far off, doth not deter 
a wise man from making provision for his country 
and his family, that may extend to distant ages, 
and from regarding posterity, of which he may 



OF CICERO. 57 

have no sensation. Wherefore a man may, though 
persuaded that his soul is mortal, act for eternity, 
not from a desire of glory, which he will be insen- 
ble of, but from a principle of virtue, which glory 
will attend, though that is not his view. In 
nature indeed it is thus ; as our birth was the be- 
ginning of things with us, death will be the end ; 
and as we were no ways concerned with them be- 
fore we were born, so we shall have none after we 
are dead : consider thus, where can be the evil ? 
seeing death has no connexion with either the 
dead, or yet those that are alive : the one are not, 
the other have nothing to do with it. They who 
make the least of death, compare it to sleep ; as 
if any one would live ninety years on condition, 
that at the expiration of -sixty, he would sleep 
out the remainder. The very swine would not 
accept of li/e on those terms, much less I : 
Endymion indeed, if you listen to fables, slept 
once on a time, on Latmus, a mountain of Caria. 
I imagine he is not as yet awake. Do you think 
he is concerned at the moon's being in labour, by 
whom he was thrown into that sleep, that she 
might embrace him in that circumstance ; for 
what should he be concerned for who has no 
sense ? You look on sleep as an image of death, 
and you take that on you daily ; and have you 
any doubt of there being no sense in death, 



58 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

when you see there is none in sleep, which resem- 
bles it ? 

XXXIX. Away then with those follies that 
speak the old woman ; that it is miserable to die 
before our time. What time do you mean? 
That of nature ? She lent you life, as money, 
without fixing a time for its payment. Have you 
any grounds of complaint then, that she recalls it 
at her pleasure ? For you received it on these 
terms. They that complain thus, allow, that to 
die in childhood, is tolerable; if in the cradle, 
more so ; and yet nature has been more exact 
with them in demanding back what she gave. 
They answer by saying, such have not tasted 
the sweets of life ; the other had great expecta- 
tions from what he had already enjoyed. They 
judge better in other things, and allow a part to 
be preferable to none ? why not so in life ? 
Though Callimachus is not amiss in saying, more 
tears had flowed from Priam, than his son ; yet 
they are thought happier who have lived to old 
age. It would be hard to say why ; for I do not 
apprehend the remainder of life would be happier 
with any. There is nothing more agreeable to a 
man than prudence, which old age as certainly 
strips him of, as any thing else : but what age is 
long ? or what is there at all long to a man ? 
Doth not 



OF CICERO. 5g 

Old age, tho' unregarded, still attend 

On childhood's pastimes, as the cares of men ? 

But because there is nothing beyond old age, we 
call that long : all these things are said to be long 
or short, according to the proportion of time, the 
time of life they bear, they were given us for. 
Aristotle saith, there is a kind of insect, near the 
river Hypanis, which runs from a certain part of 
Europe, into the Pontus, whose life consists but 
of one day ; those that die at the eighth hour, die 
in full age ; those who die when the sun sets, very 
old, especially when the days are at the longest. 
Compare our longest age with eternity, and we 
shall be found as short-lived as those little 
animals. 

XL. Let us then despise all these follies, for 
what softer name can I give to such levities ? and 
let us lay the foundation of our happiness in the 
strength and greatness of our minds, in a con- 
tempt and disregard for all earthly things, and in 
the practice of every virtue. For at present we 
are enervated by the delicacy of our imagina- 
tions, so that, should we leave this world before 
the promises of our fortune-tellers are made good 
to us, we should think ourselves deprived of some 
great advantages, and seem disappointed and 
forlorn. But if through life we are in continual 
suspense, still expecting, still desiring, and are in 
continual pain and torture: good gods! how 



60 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

pleasant must that journey be, which ends in 
security and ease ! How pleased am I with Thera- 
menes! of how exalted a soul he appears! Though 
we never read of him without tears ; yet that ex- 
cellent man is not to be lamented in his death; 
who, when imprisoned by the command of the 
thirty tyrants, drank off at one draught, as if he 
had been thirsty, the poisoned cup, and threw the 
remainder out of it, with such force, that it 
sounded as it fell. On hearing the sound of it, 
he with a smile said, " I drink this to the hand- 
some Critias;" who had been the most severe 
against him : for it is customary with the Greeks, 
at their banquets to name the person to whom 
they intend to deliver the cup. This excellent 
man was pleasant to the last, even when he had 
received the poison into his bowels ; and truly 
foretold his death, to whom he drank of the 
poison, which soon followed. Who that thought 
death an evil, could approve of the evenness of 
temper in this great man, at the instant of dying ! 
Socrates came a few years after to the same 
prison and the same cup, by the like iniquity of 
his judges, as Theramenes by that of the tyrants. 
What a speech is that which Plato makes him 
use before his judges, after they had condemned 
him to death! " I am not without hopes, O 
judges, that it is a favourable circumstance to me, 
that I am condemned to die : for one of these two 



OF CICERO. 6l 

things must necessarily be, that either death will 
deprive me entirely of all sense ; or by dying I 
shall go hence into some other place ; wherefore, 
if I am deprived of sense, and death is like that 
sleep, which sometimes is so undisturbed, as to be 
even without the visions of dreams ; good gods ! 
what gain is it to die ! or what length of days 
can be preferable to such a night ? And if the 
constant course of future time should resemble 
that night, who is happier than I am ? but if what 
is said be true, that death is but a removal to 
those regions where the souls of the departed 
dwell; that still must be more happy; to have 
escaped from those who call themselves judges, 
and to appear before such as are truly so, Minos, 
Rhadamanthus, y^acus, Triptolemus ; and to 
meet with those who have lived with justice and 
probity! Can this change of abode appear other- 
wise than great to you ? to converse with Orpheus, 
Musaeus, Homer, Hesiod, is a privilege of inesti- 
mable value ! I would willingly, were it possible, 
die often, in order to prove the certainty of what 
I speak of. What satisfaction must it be to meet 
with Palamedes, Ajax, and others, betrayed by 
the iniquity of their judges? I would prove the 
wisdom even of that king of kings, who led such 
troops to Troy, that of Ulysses and Sisyphus: nor 
should I be condemned, as I was here, for such an 
inquiry. And as for you, my judges, who have 



6'2 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

absolved me, ye need not fear death, for nothing 
had can befall a good man, whether dead or living, 
nor are his concerns overlooked by the gods, nor 
has this befallen me by chance; nor have I ought 
to charge those with, who accused or condemned 
me, but their intention of doing me harm." In 
this manner he proceeded ; but nothing I more 
admire than his last words, " But it is time," saith 
he, " for me, to go hence to death ; you, to your 
employs of life ; the immortal gods know which is 
best ; indeed I believe no mortal doth." 

XLII. I had preferred this man's soul to all 
the fortunes of those who sat in judgment on him: 
notwithstanding he saith the gods only knew 
which was best, he himself did ; for he had deter- 
mined that before ; but he held to the last, the 
maxim peculiar to him, of affirming nothing. And 
let us hold to this, not to think any thing an evil, 
that is a general provision of nature : and let us 
assure ourselves, that if death is an evil, it is an 
eternal evil ; for death seems to be the end of a 
miserable life ; but if death is a misery, there can 
be no end. But why do I mention Socrates, or 
Theramenes, men distinguished by the glory of 
virtue and wisdom? When a certain Lacedaemo- 
nian, whose name is not so much as known, held 
death in such contempt, that, when led to it by 
the ephori, he looked cheerful and pleasant; and 
being thus interrupted by one of his enemies; 



OF CICERO. 63 

" Do you despise the laws of Lycurgus ? " he an- 
swered, " I am greatly obliged to him, for he has 
amerced me in a fine which I can pay without 
borrowing, or taking up at interest." This was 
a man worthy of Sparta ! and I am almost per- 
suaded of his innocency, from the greatness of 
his soul. Our city has produced many such. But 
why should I name generals, and other great 
men, when Cato could write, that legions have 
with alacrity marched to that place, from whence 
they never expected to return? With no less 
greatness of soul, fell the Lacedaemonians at Ther- 
mopylae, of whom Simonides : 

Go, stranger, tell the Spartans, here we lie, 
Who to support their laws durst boldly die. 

How nobly did Leonidas, their general, speak ! 
" March on with courage, my Lacedaemonians; to 
night, perhaps, we shall sup in the regions below." 
This was a brave nation, whilst the laws of Ly- 
curgus were in force. One of them, when a 
Persian had said to him in conversation, " We 
shall hide the sun by the number of our arrows 
and darts ;" replied, " We shall fight then in the 
shade." Do I talk of their men ? how great was 
that Lacedaemonian woman, who sent her son to 
battle, and hearing that he was slain, " I bore 
him," said she, " for that purpose, that you might 
have a man who durst die for his country." 

XLIII. It is admitted that the Spartans were 



64 ' THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

bold and hardy : the discipline of the republic 
greatly promoted this. What ? have we not 
reason to admire Theodore, the Cyrenean, a 
philosopher of some distinction? who when Lysi- 
machus threatened to crucify him, bid him keep 
those menaces for his courtiers : " Theodore is 
indifferent whether he rot in the air or under- 
ground." From which saying of the philosopher, 
an occasion is given me of speaking to the custom 
of burying, and its ceremonies, which will require 
but few words, especially if we recollect what has 
been before said of the soul's insensibility. The 
opinion of Socrates in this is clear, from the book 
which treats of his death; of which we have already 
said a good deal ; for when he had disputed about 
the immortality of the soul, and the time of his 
dying was near ; being asked by Criton, how he 
would be buried ; " I have taken a great deal of 
pains," saith he, " my friends, to no purpose, for 
I have not convinced our Criton, that I shall fly 
from hence, and leave no part of me behind ? not- 
withstanding, Criton, if you can overtake me, 
wheresoever you get hold of me, bury me as you 
please : but believe me, none of you will be able 
to reach me when I fly hence." That was excel- 
lently said, for he allows his friend to do as he 
pleased, and yet showed his indifference about 
any thing of this kind. Diogenes was something 
rougher, though of the same opinion ; but as a 



OF CICERO. 65 

Cynic, he expressed himself somewhat harsher ; 
he ordered himself to be thrown any where with- 
out burying ; when his friends replied, " What, 
to the birds and beasts ?" " By no means," saith 
he, " place my staff near me, that I may drive 
them away." They answer, " How can you do 
that, for you will not perceive them ?" " How am 
I concerned then in being torn by those animals, 
if I have no sense ?" Anaxagoras, when he was 
near dying at Lampsacus, and was asked by his 
friends, whether, if any thing should happen to 
him, he would not choose to be carried to Clazo- 
menae, his country, made this excellent answer; 
* No," says he, " there is no occasion for that, all 
places are at an equal distance from the infernal 
regions." There is one thing to be observed on 
the whole of burying, that it relates to the body, 
whether the soul live or perish : now with regard 
to the body, it is clear, that, let the soul live or 
not, that has no sensation. 

XLIV. But all things are full of errors. 
Achilles drags Hector, tied to his chariot ; he 
thinks, I suppose, he tears his flesh, and that 
Hector feels the pain of it ; therefore he is 
revenged, as he imagines ; but Hecuba bewails 
this as a sore misfortune : 

I saw (a dreadful sight !) great Hector slain, 
Dragg'd at Achilles' car along the plain. 



66 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

What Hector ? or how long will he be Hector 1 
Accius is better in this, and Achilles is sometimes 
more reasonable, 

I Hector's body to his sire convey'd, 
Hector I sent to the infernal shade. 

It was not Hector that you dragged along, but a 
body that had been Hector's. Here another 
starts from underground, and will not suffer his 
mother to sleep ; 

To thee I call, my once lov'd parent, hear, 
Nor longer with thy sleep relieve thy care ; 
Thine eye unpitying me is closM — arise, 
Lingering I wait the unpaid obsequies. 

When these verses are sung with a slow and 
melancholy tune, so as to affect the whole theatre 
with sadness, one can scarce help thinking those 
unhappy, that are unburied : 

Ere the devouring dogs and hungry vultures ; 
He is afraid he shall not have the use of his limbs 
so well, if they are torn to pieces, but is under no 
such apprehensions if they are burned : 

Nor leave my naked bones, my poor remains, 
To shameful violence, and bloody stains. 

What could he fear, who could pour forth such 
excellent verses, to the sound of the flute ? We 
must therefore adhere to this, that nothing is to be 
regarded after we are dead ; though many re- 
venge themselves on their dead enemies. Thy- 



OP CICERO. 67 

estes, in some good lines of Ennius, prays, first, 
that Atreus may perish by a shipwreck, which is 
certainly a very bad death ; such an exit is very 
shocking! then follow these unmeaning ex- 
pressions, 

May 

On the sharp rock his mangled carcass lie, 
His entrails torn, to hungry birds a prey, 
May he convulsive writhe his pendant side, 
And with his clotted gore the stones be dyed. 

The stones had as much feeling as he who lay on 
them ; though Thyestes imagines he has wished 
him the greatest torture : it would be pain indeed, 
were he sensible. But as he is not, it can be 
none : then how very unmeaning is this ! 

Let him, still hovering o'er the Stygian wave, 
Ne'er reach the body's peaceful port, the grave. 

You see what mistakes they are under ; he 
imagines the body has its haven, and that the 
dead are at rest in their graves. Pelops was to 
blame not to have informed and taught his son 
what regard was due to every thing. 

XLV. But there is no occasion to animadvert 
on the opinions of individuals, when you may ob- 
serve whole nations to fall into those errors. The 
Egyptians embalmed their dead, and kept them 
in their houses ; the Persians dress them over 
with wax, that they may preserve their bodies as 
long as possible. It is customary with the Magi, to 



6& THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

bury none of their order, unless they have been 
first torn by dogs. In Hyrcania, the people 
maintain dogs for the public use, their nobles have 
their own : we know they have a good breed of 
dogs ; but every one, according to his ability, 
provides himself with some, in order to be torn 
by them ; and. they hold that to be the best inter- 
ment. Chrysippus, who is curious in all kinds of 
historical facts, has collected many other things of 
this kind, but some of them are so offensive as 
not to admit of being related. All that has been 
said of burying, is not worth our regard, with 
respect to ourselves, but not to be neglected as to 
our friends, provided we are persuaded that the 
dead are insensible : but the living indeed should 
consider what is due to custom and opinion, but 
they should in this consider too, that the dead are 
no ways interested in it. But death truly is then 
met with the greatest tranquillity, when the dying 
man can comfort himself with his own praise. 
No one dies too soon who has finished the course 
of perfect virtue. Death might have called on 
me often very seasonably/ oh ! how I wish it had ! 
for I have gained nothing by the delay : I had 
gone over and over again the duties of life; nothing 
remained but to contend with fortune. If reason 
then cannot sufficiently fortify us to a contempt 
of death, let our past life confirm us in the 
conviction that we have lived too long : for, not- 



OF CICERO. 69 

withstanding the deprivation of sense, the dead 
are not without that good which properly belongs 
to them, the praise and glory they have acquired, 
though they are not sensible of it. For although 
there be nothing in glory to make it desirable, 
yet it follows virtue as its shadow. But the judg- 
ment of the multitude on good men, if ever they 
form any, is more to their own praise, than of 
any real advantage to the dead ; yet I cannot say, 
however it may be received, that Lycurgus and 
Solon are without the glory of their laws, and the 
public discipline they established : or that Themi- 
stocles and Epaminondas have not the glory of 
their martial virtue. Neptune shall sooner bury 
Salamine with his waters, than the memory of 
the trophies gained there, and the Boeotian 
Leuctra shall perish sooner, than the glory of 
that action. But the fame of Curius, Fabricius, 
Calatinus, the two Scipios, and the two Africani, 
Maximus, Marcellus, Paulus, Cato, Laelius, and 
numberlesss others, shall remain longer with them. 
Whoever has caught any resemblance of them 
not estimating it by common fame, but the real 
applause of good men, may with confidence, 
should it be necessary, approach death; which 
we know to be, if not the chief good, at least no 
«vil. Such a one would even choose to die, 
whilst he was in prosperity ; for all the favours 
that could be heaped on him, would not be so 



70 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

agreeable to him, as to lose them vexatious* 
That speech of the Lacedaemonian seems to have 
the same meaning ; who, when Diagoras the 
Rhodian, who had himself been a conqueror at 
the Olympic games, saw two of his own sons con- 
querors there, he approached the old man, and 
congratulating him, said, " You should die now, 
Diagoras, for no greater happiness can attend 
you." The Greeks look on these as great things ; 
perhaps they think too high of them, or rather 
did so then. He, who said this to Diagoras, 
looking on it as something very extraordinary, 
that three out of one family should have been 
conquerors there, thought it could answer no 
purpose to him, to continue any longer here, ex- 
posed only to a reverse of fortune. 

XL VI. I might have given a satisfactory 
answer in this point, with few words, as you 
allowed the dead were not miserable : but I 
have laboured it the more for this reason, because 
this is our greatest consolation in the losing and 
bewailing of our friends. For we ought to bear 
with discretion any grief that arises from ourselves, 
or on our own account, lest we should seem to be 
influenced by self-love. But should we suspect 
our departed friends to be under those evils, which 
they are generally imagined to be, and to be sen- 
sible of them, such a suspicion would give us 
intolerable uneasiness : I wished, for my own sake, 



OF CICERO. 71 

to pluck up this opinion by the root ; and on that 
account I have been perhaps too tedious. 

XL VII. A. You too tedious ? no, indeed, not 
to me. I was induced by the former part of 
your speech, to wish to die; by the latter, to be 
indifferent, or at least not to be uneasy about it. 
But on the whole I am convinced that there can 
be no evil in death. M\ Do you expect that I 
should give you an epilogue, like the rhetoricians, 
or shall I forego that art 1 A. I would not have 
you give over an art you have set off to such 
advantage ; and you were in the right in that, for, 
to speak the truth, it has set you off. But what 
is that epilogue ? for I should be glad to hear it, 
whatever it is. M. It is customary in the schools, 
to produce the opinions of the immortal gods on 
death ; nor are these opinions the fruits of ima- 
gination alone, but have the authority of Herodotus 
and many others. Cleobis and Biton are the 
first they mention, sons of the Argive priestess ; 
it is a known story. As it was necessary she 
should be drawn in a chariot, to a certain stated 
sacrifice, solemnized at a temple some considerable 
distance from the town, and the cattle that drew 
it went very slowly, those two young men I men- 
tioned, pulling off their garments, and anointing 
their bodies with oil, applied themselves to the 
yoke. The priestess being thus conveyed to the 



72 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

temple drawn by her two sons, is said to have en- 
treated the goddess to bestow on them, for their 
piety, the greatest gift that a god could confer : 
the young men, after having feasted with their 
mother, fell asleep ; and in the morning they were 
found dead. Trophonius and Agamedes are said to 
have put up the same petition, who having built 
a temple to Apollo at Delphi, supplicating the 
god, desired of him some extraordinary reward for 
their care and labour, particularizing nothing, but 
only what was best for men. Apollo signified that 
he would bestow it the third day at sun-rising; 
on that day they were found dead. This they 
say was the particular determination of that god, 
to whom the rest of the deities have assigned the 
province of divining. 

XLVIII. There is another little story told of 
Silenus, who, when taken prisoner by Midas, is 
said to have made him this present, for his ran- 
som ; he informed him, that never to have been 
born, was by far the greatest blessing that could 
happen to man ; the nearest to it, was, to die very 
soon : which very opinion Euripides makes use of 
in his Cresphon, 

When man is born, *1is fit, with solemn show, 
We speak our sense of his approaching woe ; 
With other gestures, and a different eye, 
Proclaim our pleasure when he's bid to die. 



OF CICERO. 73 

There is something like this in Grantor's Conso- 
lation ; for he saith, that Terinasus of Elysia, be- 
moaning heavily the loss of his son, came to a 
place of divination to be informed why he was 
visited with so great affliction, and received in his 
tablet these three verses : 

Thou fool, to murmur at Euthynous' death ! 
The blooming youth to fate resigns his breath : 
That fate, whereon your happiness depends, 
At once the parent and the son befriends. 

On these and such like authorities they affirm 
this cause to have been determined by the gods* 
But Alcidamas, an ancient rhetorician, of great 
reputation, wrote even in praise of death, by 
recounting the evils of life; he has much of the 
orator, but was unacquainted with the more 
refined arguments of the philosophers. With the 
rhetoricians indeed, to die for our country, is 
always not only glorious, but happy : they go 
back as far as Erectheus, whose very daughters 
underwent death, for the safety of their fellow- 
citizens : they instance Codrus, who threw himself 
jnto the midst of his enemies, dressed like a com- 
mon man, that his royal robes might not betray 
him ; because the oracle had declared the Athe- 
nians conquerors, if their king was slain. Mense- 
ceus is not overlooked by them, who, on the pub- 
lishing of an oracle, freely gave up his blood to 



74 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

his country. Iphigenia ordered herself to be 
conveyed to Aulis, to be sacrificed, that her blood 
might be the means of spilling that of her enemies. 
From hence they proceed to instances of a fresher 
date. Harmodius and Aristogiton, Leonidas the 
Laced aemonian, and Epaminondas the Theban, 
are much talked of; they were not acquainted 
with the many instances in our country, to give a 
list of whom would take up too much time ; so 
great is the number of those to whom an honour" 
able death was always desirable. Notwithstanding 
it is thus, we must use much persuasion, and a 
loftier strain of eloquence, to bring men to begin 
to wish to die, or to cease to be afraid of death. 
For if that last day doth not occasion an entire 
extinction, but a change of place only, what can 
be more desirable ? but if it destroys, and abso- 
lutely puts an end to us, what is preferable to the 
having a deep sleep fall on us, in the midst of the 
fatigues of life, and thus overtaken to sleep to 
eternity ? which, should it be the case, Ennius's 
speech exceeds Solon's; for our Ennius saith, 

Let none bestow upon my passing bier 
One needless sigh, or unavailing tear. 

But that wise man, 

Let me not unlamented die, but o'er my bier 
Burst forth the tender sigh, the friendly tear. 

Should it indeed be our case to know the time 



OF CICERO. 75 

appointed by the gods for us to die, let us prepare 
ourselves for it, with a pleasant and grateful 
mind, as those who are delivered from a jail, and 
eased from their fetters, to go back to their 
eternal and (without dispute) their own habi- 
tation ; or to be divested of all sense and trouble. 
But should we not be acquainted with this decree, 
yet should we be so disposed, as to look on that 
last hour as happy for us, though shocking to 
our friends ; and never imagine that to be an evil, 
which is an appointment of the immortal gods, 
or of nature, the common parent of all. For it is 
not by hazard or without design that we have a 
being here ; but doubtless there is a certain 
power, concerned for human nature ; which would 
neither have produced nor provided for a being, 
which after having gone through the labours of 
life, was to fall into an eternal evil by death. 
Let us rather infer, that we have a retreat and 
haven prepared for us, which, I wish, we could 
make for, with crowded sails; but though the 
winds should not serve, yet we shall of course gain 
it, though somewhat later. But how can that be 
miserable for one which all must undergo? I 
have given you an epilogue, that you might not 
think I had overlooked or neglected any thing. 
A. I am persuaded you have not; and indeed 
that epilogue has confirmed me. M. I am glad it 
has had that effect ; but it is now time to consult 



76 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS, &C. 

our healths ; to-morrow, and all the time we 
continue here, let us consider this subject ; and 
principally that which may ease our pain, alle- 
viate our fears, and lessen our desires, which is 
the greatest advantage we can reap from the 
whole of philosophy. 



END OF BOOK I. 



THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS. 



BOOK II. 



ON BEARING PAIN. 

I. Neoptolemus in Ennius indeed saith, that the 
study of philosophy, moderately pursued, was ex- 
pedient for him ; but to give himself up entirely 
to it, was what he did not approve of. As to 
my part, Brutus, I am perfectly persuaded that it 
is expedient for me to philosophize ; for what can 
I do better, having no employ ? but I am not for 
proceeding but a little way in it, like him : for it 
is difficult to acquire the knowledge of a little, 
without acquainting yourself with many, or all 
its branches ; nor can you well select that little 
but out of a great number : nor can any one who 
has acquired some knowledge thereof, avoid en- 
deavouring at more, with the same inclination. 
But in a life of business, like that of Neoptolemus, 
and in a military way, that little may have its 
use, and yield fruit, though not so plentifully as 
the whole of philosophy ; yet such as in some 
degree may at times lessen our desires, our 



78 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

sorrows, and our fears : just as the effect of our 
late Tusculan Disputations seemed to be a great 
contempt of death ; which contempt is of no 
small efficacy to the ridding the mind of fear : 
for whoever dreads what cannot be avoided, can 
by no means live with any satisfaction. But 
he who is under no fear of death, not only from 
the necessity of dying, but from a persuasion 
that death itself hath nothing terrible in it, has 
very great security for a happy life. However, I 
am not ignorant, that many will strenuously 
oppose us ; which can be no otherwise avoided 
than by not writing at all. For if my Orations, 
which were addressed to the judgment and ap- 
probation of the people, (for that is a popular 
art, and the effect of oratory is popular applause), 
encountered some who are inclined to withhold 
their praise from every thing but what they are 
persuaded they can attain to themselves, and who 
confine good speaking to what they may hope to 
reach, and who declare, when they are over- 
whelmed with a flow of words and sentences, 
that they prefer the utmost poverty of thought 
and expression to that plenty and copiousness ; 
(from whence arose the kind of Attic oratory, 
which they who professed it were strangers to, 
and which is already silenced, and laughed out 
of the very courts of justice) ; what may I not 
expect, when at present I cannot have the least 



OF CICERO. 7Q 

countenance from the people, by which I was 
upheld before ? For philosophy is satisfied with 
a few judges, of herself industriously avoiding 
the multitude, who are jealous of it, and utterly 
displeased with it : so that, should any one under- 
take to cry down the whole, he would have the 
people on his side ; or should he attack that, 
which I particularly profess, he might have as- 
sistance from the schools of the other philosophers. 
But I have answered the detractors of philosophy 
in general, in my Hortensius. What I had to 
say in favour of the Academics, is, I think, suffi- 
ciently explained in my Academics. 

II. But yet I am so far from desiring that 
none should write against me, that it is what 
I most earnestly covet ; for philosophy hud never 
been in such esteem in Greece itself, but from the 
strength it acquired from the contentions and dis- 
putations of their learned men ; therefore I re- 
commend to all who have abilities, to snatch this 
art also from declining Greece, and transport 
it to us ; as our ancestors by their study and 
industry imported all their other arts, which were 
worth having. Thus the praise of oratory, raised 
from a low degree, is arrived at such perfection, 
that it must now decline, and, as is the nature of 
all things, verge to its dissolution, in a very short 
time. Let philosophy then from this time spring 
afresh in the Latin tongue, and let us lend it our 



80 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

assistance, and let us bear patiently to be con- 
tradicted and refuted; which they dislike who are 
devoted to certain determined opinions, and are 
under such obligations to maintain them, that 
though they can support them by no arguments, 
they are forced to abide by them, to avoid the 
imputation of fickleness. We who pursue only 
probabilities, and cannot go beyond what is likely, 
can confute others without obstinacy, and are 
prepared to be confuted ourselves without resent- 
ment. Besides, were these studies brought home 
to us, we should not want Greek libraries, in 
which there is an infinite number of books, by 
reason of the multitude of authors among them ; 
for it is a common practice with many to repeat 
the same things which have been wrote by others, 
which serves no purpose, but to stuff their shelves : 
and this will be our case, if many apply themselves 
to this study. But let us excite those, if possible, 
who have had a liberal education, and are masters 
of an elegant style, and philosophize with reason 
and method. 

III. For there is a farther certain tribe who 
would willingly be called philosophers, whose 
books in our language are said to be numerous, 
which I do not despise, for indeed I never read 
them: but because the authors themselves declare 
that they write without any regularity or method, 
without elegance or ornament : I do not choose 



OF CICRRO. 8 I 

to read what is so void of entertainment. There 
is no one in the least acquainted with letters 
but knows the style and sentiments of that 
school ; wherefore, since they are at no pains 
about expression, I do not see why they should 
be read by any but one another : let them read 
them, if they please, who are of the same opi- 
nions : for as all read Plato, and the other 
Socratics, with those who sprung from them, 
even they who do not allow of their opinions, 
or are very indifferent about them ; but scarce any, 
except their own disciples, take Epicurus, or 
Metrodorus, into their hands ; so they alone read 
these Latin books, who allow of their tenets. 
But, in my opinion, whatever is published, should 
be recommended to the reading of every man of 
learning ; and though we may not succeed in 
this ourselves, yet nevertheless we must be sen- 
sible that this ought to be the aim of every 
writer.* I am pleased with the manner of the 
Peripatetics, and Academics, of disputing on both 
sides of the question ; not solely from its being 
the only method of discovering the probable, 
but because it affords the greatest scope for rea- 
soning ; a method that Aristotle first made use 
of, afterwards all the Aristotelians ; and in our 
memory Philo, whom we have often heard, ap- 
pointed one time to treat of the precepts of the 
rhetoricians, another for philosophy ; to which 

G 



82 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

custom I was brought to conform by means of 
my friends at my Tusculum, where our leisure 
time was spent in this manner. So that as we 
did yesterday, before noon we applied ourselves 
to speaking ; and in the afternoon went down 
into the academy : the disputations held there I 
have acquainted you with, not in a narrative 
way, but almost in the same words in which they 
were carried on. 

IV. The discourse then was introduced in 
this manner, whilst we were walking, and the 
exordium was somewhat thus. A. It is not to 
be expressed how much I was delighted, or rather 
edified, by your discourse of yesterday. Though 
I am conscious to myself that I was never over- 
fond of life, yet at times, when I have considered 
that there would be an end to this life, and that I 
must some time or other part with all its good 
things, a dread and uneasiness has intruded on 
my thoughts ; but now, believe me, I am so freed 
from that kind of uneasiness, that I think it not 
worth any regard. M. I am not at all surprised 
at that, for it is the effect of philosophy, which is 
the medicine of our souls ; it discharges all 
groundless apprehensions, frees us from desires, 
drives away fears : but it has not the same in- 
fluence over all ; it exerts itself most, when it falls 
in with a disposition proper for it. For fortune 
doth not alone, as the old proverb is, assist the 



OF CICERO. 83 

bold, but reason more so ; which, by certain pre- 
cepts, as it were, confirms even courage itself. 
You were born naturally great and soaring, and 
with a contempt for all things here ; therefore a 
discourse against death had an easy possession of 
a brave soul. But do you imagine that these 
same arguments have any force with those very 
persons who have invented, canvassed, and pub- 
lished them, excepting indeed some few particu- 
lar persons ? For how few philosophers will you 
meet with, whose life and manners are conforma- 
ble to the dictates of reason ? who look on their 
profession, not as a means of displaying their 
learning, but as a rule for their practice ? who 
follow their own precepts, and comply with their 
own decrees ? You may see some of that levity, 
that vanity, that it would have been better for 
them to have been ignorant ; some covetous of 
money, some ambitious, many slaves to their 
lusts ; so that their discourses and their actions 
are most strangely at variance ; than which 
nothing in my opinion is more unbecoming ; for 
it is just as if one who professed teaching gram- 
mar, should speak with impropriety ; or a maste r 
of music sing out of tune ; it has the worse 
appearance, because he acts contrary to his pro- 
fession : so a philosopher, who errs in the conduct 
of his life, is the more infamous, because he mis- 
takes in the very thing he pretends to teach, and 



84 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

whilst he lays down rules to regulate life by, 
is irregular in his own life. 

V. A. Should this be the case, is it not to be 
feared that you are dressing up philosophy in 
false colours ? for what stronger argument can 
there be, that it is of little use, than, that some 
complete philosophers live immorally ? M. That, 
indeed, is no argument, for as all fields are not 
fruitful, because manured ; and this sentiment of 
Accius is false, and asserted without any foun- 
dation, 

The ground you sow on, is of small avail ; 
To yield a crop good seed can never fail : 

so all minds do not answer their culture : and to 
go on with the comparison, as the field naturally 
fruitful cannot produce a crop, without dressing, 
so neither can the mind, without improvement ; 
such is the weakness of either without the other. 
Whereas philosophy is the culture of the mind : 
this it is which plucks up vices by the roots ; pre- 
pares the mind for the receiving of seed, commits 
them to it, or, as I may say, sows them, that, 
when come to maturity, they may produce a 
plentiful harvest. Let us proceed then as we 
begun ; say, if you please, what shall be the 
subject of our disputation. A. I look on pain to 
be the greatest of all evils. M* What, greater 
than infamy ? A. I dare not indeed assert that, 
and I blush to think I am so soon driven from my 



OF CICERO. 85 

opinion. M. You would have had greater rea- 
son for blushing, had you persevered in it; for 
what is so unbecoming ? what can appear worse 
to you, than disgrace, wickedness, immorality ? 
To avoid which, what pain should we not only 
not refuse, but willingly take on ourselves ? A. I 
am entirely of that opinion ; but notwithstanding 
that pain is not the greatest evil, yet surely it is 
an evil. M. Do you perceive then how much of 
the terror of pain you have given up on a small 
hint? A, I see that plainly; but I should be 
glad to give up more of it. M. I will endeavour 
at it, but it is a great undertaking, and I must 
have no contradiction. A, You shall have none ; 
as I behaved yesterday, so now I will follow 
reason wherever she leads. 

VI. First, then, I will speak to the weakness of 
some, and the various sects of philosophers ; the 
head of whom, both in authority and antiquity^ 
was Aristippus, the Socratic, who hesitated not to 
say, that pain was the greatest of all evils. Next 
Epicurus easily gave into this effeminate and 
enervated opinion. After him Hieronymus, the 
Rhodian, said, that to be without pain was the 
chief good, so great an evil did pain appear to 
him. The rest, excepting Zeno, Aristo, Pyrrho, 
were pretty much of the same opinion you were 
of just now, that it was indeed an evil, but there 



86 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

were many worse. Therefore what nature herself, 
and every generous soul disavows, that pain should 
be called the greatest of evils, and which you 
yourself renounced when infamy appeared in con- 
trast to it, is this, what philosophy, the mistress of 
life, continues to maintain for so many ages ? 
What duty of life, what praise, what reputation 
would be of such consequence, that a man should 
be desirous of gaining it at the expense of sub- 
mitting to bodily pain, when he considers pain as 
the greatest evil ? On the other side, what 
disgrace, what ignominy would he not submit to, 
that he might avoid pain, when persuaded that 
it was the greatest of evils ? Besides, what per- 
son, who looks on pain as the greatest of evils, is 
not miserable, not only when he actually feels 
pain, but when he reflects that it may befall him ? 
hence it follows that every man is miserable. 
Metrodorus indeed thinks him perfectly happy, 
whose body is free from all disorders, and has an 
assurance that it will always continue so ; but 
who is there can be assured of that ? 

VII. Epicurus truly saith such things as if 
his design was to make people laugh; for he 
affirms some where, that if a wise man were to 
be burned, or put to the torture; you expect 
perhaps, he should say that he would bear it, 
that he would support himself under it with 



OF CICERO. 87 

resolution ! (that, so help me, Hercules ! would 
be very commendable, and becoming that very 
Hercules I adjured ;) but this will not satisfy 
Epicurus, a robust and hardy man ! No, if he were 
in Phalaris's bull, he would say, how sweet it is ! 
how little do I regard it ! What sweet ? is it not 
sufficient, if it is not disagreeable ? but those very 
men who deny pain to be an evil, to say, that it is 
agreeable to any one to be tormented ; they rather 
say, that it is hard, afflicting, unnatural, but yet 
no evil. He who saith it is the only evil, and the 
very worst of all evils, yet thinks a wise man 
would pronounce it sweet. I do not require of 
you to speak of pain in the same words which 
Epicurus doth, a man, as you know, devoted to 
pleasure ; he may make no difference, if he 
pleases, between Phalaris's bull, and his own 
bed : but I cannot allow this wise man to be so 
indifferent about pain. If he bears it with 
courage, it is sufficient; that he should rejoice in 
it, I do not expect ; for pain is certainly sharp, 
bitter, against nature, hard to submit to, and 
bear. Observe Philoctetes : we may allow him 
to lament, for he saw Hercules himself grieving 
loudly through extremity of pain on mount 
(Eta : the arrows Hercules presented him with, 
were then no consolation to him, when 

The viper's bite, impregnating his veins 
With poison, rack'd him with its bitter pains . 



88 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

And therefore he cries out, desiring help, and 
wishing to die, 

Oh ! that some friendly hand its aid would lend, 
My body from this rock's vast height to send 
Into the briny deep ! Pm all on fire, 
And by this fatal wound must soon expire. 

It is hard to say, he was not oppressed with evil, 
and great evil too, who was obliged to cry out in 
this manner. 

VIII. But let us observe Hercules himself, 
who was subdued by pain, at the very time he was 
in quest of immortality by dying. What words 
doth Sophocles here put in his mouth, in his 
Trachiniae? who, when Deianira had put upon 
him a tunic dyed in the centaur's blood, and it 
stuck to his entrails, saith, 

What tortures I endure, no words can tell, 
Far greater these, than those which erst befel 
From the dire terror of thy consort, Jove ; 
E'en stern Eurystheus' dire command above ; 
This of thy daughter, (En§us, is the fruit, 
Beguiling me with her envenom'd suit, 
Whose close embrace doth on my entrails prey, 
Consuming life; my lungs forbids to play; 
The blood forsakes my veins, my manly heart 
Forgets to beat; enervated, each part 
Neglects its office, whilst my fatal doom 
Proceeds ignobly from the weaver's loom. 
The hand of foe ne'er hurt me, nor the fierce 
Giant, issuing from his parent earth. 
Ne'er could the Centaur such a blow enforce, 
No barbarous foe, nor all the Grecian force; 



OF CICERO. 89 

This arm no savage people could withstand, 
Whose realms I travers'd, to reform the land. 
Thus, though I ever bore a manly heart, 
I fall a victim to a woman's art. 
Assist, my son, if thou that name dost hear, 
My groans preferring to thy mother's tear; 
Convey her here, if, in thy pious heart, 
Thy mother shares not an unequal part : 
Proceed, be bold, thy father's fate bemoan, 
Nations Avill join, you will not weep alone. 
O what a sight is this same briny source, 
Unknown before, through all my labours' course ? 
That virtue, which could brave each toil but late, 
With woman's weakness now bewails its fate. 
Approach, my son -, behold thy father laid, 
A witherM carcass that implores thy aid; 
Let all behold ! and thou, imperious Jove, 
On me direct thy lightning from above : 
Now all its force the poison doth assume, 
And my burnt entrails with its flame consume. 
Crest-fallen, unembraced, I now let fall, 
Listless, those hands that lately conquered all - } 
When the Nemsean lion own'd their force, 
And he indignant fell a breathless corse : 
The serpent slew, of the Lernean lake, 
As did the Hydra of its force partake : 
By this too fell the Erymanthian boar : 
E'en Cerberus did his weak strength deplore. 
This sinewy arm did overcome with ease 
That dragon, guardian of the golden fleece. 
My many conquests let some others trace ; 
It's mine to say, f never knew disgrace. 

Can we then despise pain, when we see Hercules 
in such intolerable pain ? 

IX. Let us see what ^Eschylus says, who was 
not only a poet, but according to report a Pytha- 






90 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

gorean philosopher: how doth he make Prome- 
theus bear the pain he suffered for the Lemnian 
theft, when he clandestinely stole away the 
celestial fire, and bestowed it on men, and was 
severely punished by Jupiter for the theft. 
Fastened to mount Caucasus, he speaks thus : 

Thou heav'n-born race of Titans here fast bound, 
Behold thy brother ! As the sailors sound 
With care the bottom, and their ships confine 
To some safe shore, with anchor and with line : 
So, by Jove's dread decree, the god of fire 
Confines me here, the victim of Jove's ire. 
With baneful art his dire machine he shapes j 
From such a god what mortal e'er escapes ? 
When each third day shall triumph o'er the night, 
Then doth the vulture with his talons light, 
Seizing my entrails ; which, in rav'nous guise, 
He preys on ! then with wings extended flies 
Aloft, and brushes with his plumes the gore : 
But when dire Jove my liver doth restore, 
Back he returns impetuous to his prey ; 
Clapping his wings, he cuts th' etherial way. 
Thus do I nourish with my blood this pest, 
Confin'd my arms, unable to contest ; 
Intreating only, that in pity Jove 
Would take my life, and this curs'd plague remove. 
But endless ages past, unheard my moan, 
Sooner shall drops dissolve this very stone. 

We scarce think it possible not to call one affected 
in this manner, miserable ; if such a one is miser- 
able, then pain is an evil. 

X. A. Hitherto you are on my side ; I will 



OF CICERO. 91 

see to that by and by ; and, in the meanwhile, 
whence are those verses? I do not remember 
them. M. I will inform you, for you are in the 
right to ask ; you see that I have much leisure. 
A. What then? M. I imagine, when you were 
at Athens, you attended frequently these schools ? 
A. Yes, and with great pleasure. M. You observed 
then, though none of them at that time were 
very eloquent, yet they used to throw in verses 
in their harangues. ,A. Dionysius the Stoic used 
to apply a great many. M. You say right; but 
they were repeated without any choice or elegancy. 
But our Philo gave you a few select lines and 
well adapted ; wherefore since I took a fancy to 
this kind of elderly declamation, I am very fond 
of quoting our poets, and where I cannot be sup- 
plied from them, I translate from the Greek, that 
the Latin language may want no ornament in this 
kind of disputation. 

XI. But do you see the ill effects of poetry ? 
The poets introduce the bravest men lamenting 
over their misfortunes: they soften our minds, 
and they are besides so entertaining, that we do 
not only read them, but get them by heart. Thus, 
what with poetry, our want of discipline at home, 
and our tender and delicate manner of living, 
virtue is become quite enervated. Plato there- 
fore was right in banishing them his common- 
wealth, where he required the best morals, and 



92 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

the best form of government. But we, who 
have all our learning from Greece, read and learn 
these from our childhood ; and look on this as a 
liberal and learned education. 

XII. But why are we angry with the poets ? 
we may find some philosophers, those masters of 
virtue, who taught that pain was the greatest of 
evils. But you, young man, when you said but 
just now that it appeared so to you, upon being 
asked, if greater than infamy, gave up that 
opinion at a word's speaking. Suppose I ask 
Epicurus the same question. He answers, that 
the least pain is a greater evil than the great- 
est infamy: that there is no evil in infamy 
itself, unless attended with pain. What pain 
then must attend Epicurus, when he saith this 
very thing, that pain is the greatest evil; for 
nothing can be a greater disgrace to a philoso- 
pher than to talk thus. Therefore you allowed 
enough, when you admitted infamy to appear to 
you a greater evil than pain. If you abide by 
this, you" will see how far pain should be re- 
sisted : and that our enquiry should be, not so 
much whether pain be an evil, as how the mind 
may be fortified for resisting it. The Stoics 
infer from some trifling arguments, that it is no 
evil, as if the dispute was about a word, not the 
thing itself. Why do you impose upon me, 
Zeno ? for when you deny, what appears very 



OF CICERO. 93 

dreadful to me, to be an evil, I am deceived, and 
am at a loss to know why, what is to me so mi- 
serable, should be no evil. The answer is, that 
nothing is an evil but what is base and vicious. 
You return to your trifling, for you do not 
remove what made me uneasy. I know that pain 
is not vice, you need not inform me of that : but 
show me, that, to be in pajn or not, is all one ; 
it has nothing to do, say you, with a happy life, 
for that consists of virtue alone ; but yet pain is 
to be avoided. If I ask, why ? it is disagree- 
able,, against nature, hard to bear, woeful and 
afflicting. 

XIII. Here are many words to express that 
variously, which we call by the single word, evil. 
You are defining pain, instead of removing it, 
when you say, it is disagreeable, unnatural, 
scarce to be borne : nor are you wrong in saying 
so, but the man who vaunts thus, and maintains 
nothing to be good but what is honest, nothing 
evil but what is base, should not give way to any 
pain. This would be wishing, not proving. 
This is better, and has more truth in it, that all 
things which nature abhors are to be looked on 
as evil; what she approves of, are to be con- 
sidered as good : this admitted, and the dispute 
about words removed, that what they with reason 
embrace, and which we call honest, right, be- 
coming, and sometimes include under the general 



94 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

name of virtue, would appear to such advantage, 
that all other things which are looked on as the 
gifts of fortune, or the good things of the body, 
would seem trifling and insignificant : no evil, nor 
all the collective body of evils together, would be 
comparable to the evil of infamy. Wherefore, if, 
as you granted in the beginning, infamy is worse 
than pain, pain is certainly nothing ; for whilst 
it shall appear to you base and unmanly to groan, 
cry out, lament, or faint under pain, whilst you 
have any notion of probity, dignity, honour, and 
keeping your eye on them, you refrain yourself; 
pain will certainly yield to virtue, and by the 
influence of imagination, will lose its whole force. 
For you must either give up virtue, or despise 
pain. Will you allow of such a virtue as pru- 
dence, without which no virtue can indeed be 
conceived ? What then. ? wili that suffer you to 
labour and take pains to no purpose ? Will tem- 
perance permit you to do any thing to excess ? 
Can justice be maintained by one, who through 
the force of pain betrays secrets, one that dis- 
covers his confederates, and relinquishes many 
duties of life ? How will you act consistent with 
courage, and its attendants, greatness of soul, reso. 
lution, patience, a contempt for all worldly things ? 
Can you hear yourself called a great man, when 
you lie groveling, dejected, and deploring your- 
self, with a lamentable voice; no one would call 



OF CICERO. 95 

you a man, in such a condition : therefore you 
must either quit all pretensions to courage, or 
pain must be laid asleep. 

XIV. You know very well, that though part 
of your Corinthian furniture be gone, the re- 
mainder is safe without that ; but if you lose one 
virtue (though virtue cannot be lost); should 
you, I say, acknowledge that you were short in 
one, you would be stripped of all. Can you then 
call Prometheus a brave man, of a great soul, 
endued with patience, and steadiness above the 
frowns of fortune ? or Philoctetes, for I choose to 
instance in him, rather than yourself, for he cer- 
tainly was not brave, who lay in his bed, watered 
with his tears, 

Whose groans, bewailings, and whose bitter cries, 
With grief incessant rend the very skies. 

I do not deny pain to be pain ; for were that the 
case, in what would courage consist ? but I say it 
should be assuaged by patience, if there be such a 
thing as patience : if there be no such thing, 
why do we speak so in praise of philosophy ? or 
why do we glory in its name ? Pain vexes us, let 
it sting us to the heart ; if you have no defence, 
submit to it ; but if you are secured by Vulcanian 
armour, i. e. with resolution, oppose it; should 
you fail to do so, that guardian of your honour, 
your courage, would forsake and leave you. By 
the laws of Lycurgus, and by those which were 



96 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

given to the Cretans by Jupiter, or which Minos 
received from that god, as the poets say, the 
youths are trained up to hunting, running, en- 
during hunger and thirst, cold and heat. The 
boys at Sparta are scourged so at the altars, that 
the blood follows the lash, nay, sometimes, as I 
heard when I was there, they are whipped to 
death ; and not one of them was ever heard to 
cry out, or so much as groan. What then ? shall 
men not be able to bear what boys do ? and shall 
custom have more force than reason ? 

XV. There is some difference betwixt labour 
and pain ; they border upon one another, but with 
a distinction. Labour is a certain exercise of the 
mind or body, in some employ or undertaking 
that requires pains ; but pain is a sharp motion in 
the body, disagreeable to our senses. Both these 
the Greeks, whose language is more copious than 
ours, express by the common name of novo? ; there- 
fore they call industrious men, pains-taking, or 
rather fond of labour; we, more pertinently, 
laborious ; for there is a difference betwixt labour 
and pain. You see, O Greece, your barrenness of 
words, sometimes, though you think you always 
abound. I say, then, there is a difference betwixt 
labour and pain. When Marius was cut for a 
swelling in his thigh, he felt pain ; when he 
headed his troops in a very hot season, he 
laboured. Yet they bear some resemblance to 



OF CICERO. 97 

one another; for the accustoming ourselves to 
labour makes us support pain with more ease. 
On this reason the founders of the Grecian form 
of government provided that the bodies of their 
youth should be strengthened by labour, which 
custom the Spartans transferred even to their 
women, who in other cities are more delicately 
clothed, and not exposed to the air: but it was 
otherwise with them. 

The Spartan women, with a manly air, 
Fatigues and dangers with their husbands share ; 
They in fantastic sports have no delight, 
Partners with them in exercise and fight. 

In these laborious exercises pain interferes some- 
times, they are thrown down, receive blows, have 
bad falls and are bruised, and the labour itself 
hardens them against pain. 

XVI. As to military service, (I speak of our 
own, not the Spartans, for they marched slow to 
the spund of the flute, and scarce a word of 
command was given without an anapest;) you 
may see whence the very name of an army (Ex- 
ercitus) is derived; great is the labour of an 
army on its march; then consider that they carry 
more than a fortnight's provision, and whatever 
else they may want : then the burthen of the 
stakes, for as to shield, sword, or helmet, they look 
on them as no more incumbrance than their own 
limbs, for they say arms are the limbs of a soldier, 

H 



98 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

which they carry so commodiously, that when 
there is occasion they throw down their burdens^ 
and use their arms as readily as their limbs. What 
are the exercises of the legions ? What labour in 
the running, encounters, shouts ! Hence it is, that 
they make so slight of wounds in action. Take a 
soldier of equal bravery, but unexercised, and he 
will seem a woman ; but why should there be 
this sensible difference betwixt a raw man, and an 
old soldier? It is true, the age of young soldiers 
is for the most part preferable, but it is practice 
that enables them to bear labour, and despise 
wounds. Thus you see, when the wounded are 
carried off the field, the raw untried soldier, 
though but slightly wounded, cries out most 
shamefully, but the more brave experienced 
veteran only enquires for some one to dress his 
wounds, and says, 

Patroclus, to thy aid I must appeal, 

Ere worse ensue, my bleeding' wounds to heal ; 

The sons of iEsculapius are employ'd, 

No room for me, so many are annoy'd. 

XVII. This is certainly Eurypilus himself, 
experienced man ! — Whilst his friend is con- 
tinually enlarging on his sorrows, you may observe 
that he is so far from weeping, that he assigns a 
reason why he should bear his wounds with 
patience. 

Who at his enemy a stroke directs, 

His sword to light upon himself expects. 



OF CICERO. 99 

Patroclus, I imagine, were he a man, would 
lead him off to his chamber to bind up his wounds ; 
but not a word of that, for he enquires how it 
went. 

Say how the Argives bear themselves in fight? 

He could not express their toils so well by words, 
as what he had suffered himself. 

Peace ! and my wounds bind up ; 

But though Eurypilus could not, ^Esopus could. 

Where Hector's fortune press'd our yielding troops, 

and he explains the rest, though in pain ; so un- 
bounded is military glory in a brave man ! Can- 
not a wise and learned man achieve what this 
old soldier could ? yes, indeed ; and in a much 
better way ; but at present I confine myself to 
custom and practice. I am not yet come to speak 
of reason and philosophy. You may often hear 
of diminutive old women living without victuals 
three or four days ; but take away a wrestlers 
provision but for one day, he will implore Jupiter 
Olympius, the very god for whom he exercises 
himself : he will cry out, It is intolerable. Great 
is the force of custom ! Sportsmen will continue 
whole nights in the snow : they will bear being 
parched upon the mountains. By custom the 
boxers will not so much as utter a groan, how- 
ever bruised by the cestus. But what do you 
think of those who put a victory in the Olympics 



100 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

on a footing with the Consulate formerly? 
What wounds will the gladiators bear, who are 
either barbarians, or the dregs of men ? How 
do they, who are trained to it, prefer being 
wounded to the basely avoiding it ? How often do 
they appear to consider nothing but the giving 
satisfaction to their masters or the people? for 
when covered with wounds, they send to their 
masters to learn their pleasure ; if it is their 
will, they are ready to lie down and die. What 
ordinary gladiator ever gave a sigh? Who ever 
turned pale ? Who ever disgraced himself either 
on his legs, or when down ? who that was on the 
ground ever drew in his neck to avoid the 
stroke? so great is the force of practice, deli- 
beration, and custom! shall this then be done 
by 

A Samnite rascal, worthy his employ ? 

And shall a man born to glory have so soft apart 
in his soul as not to be able to fortify himself by 
reason and reflection? The sight of the gladia- 
tors' combats is by some looked on as cruel and 
inhuman, and I do not know, as it is at present 
managed, but it may be so ; but when the guilty 
fought, we might receive by our ears perhaps, by 
our eyes we could not, better instructions to harden 
us against pain and death. 

XVIII. I have now done with exercise, custom, 
and a sense of honour; proceed we now to con- 



OF CICERO. 101 

sider the force of reason, unless you have some- 
thing to reply to what has been said. A. That 
I should interrupt you! by no means; for your 
discourse has brought me over to your opinion. 
It is the Stoics' business then to determine if pain 
be an evil or not, who endeavour to show by some 
strained and trifling conclusions, which are nothing 
to the purpose, that pain is no evil. My opinion 
is, that whatever it is, it is not so great as it ap- 
pears ; and I say, that men are influenced more 
by some false representations and appearance of 
it, and that all which is really felt is tolerable. 
Where shall I begin then ? shall I superficially 
go over what I said before, that my discourse may 
have a greater scope ? 

This then is agreed on by all, both by the 
learned and unlearned, that it becomes the brave 
and magnanimous, those that have patience and a 
spirit above this world, not to give way to pain ; 
and every one commends a man who bears it 
thus. Whatever then is expected from a brave 
man, and is commendable in him, it would be 
base in any one to be afraid of at its approach, 
or not to bear when it came. But I would have 
you be aware, that all the right affections of the 
soul come under the name of virtues ; this is not 
properly the name of them all, but that they all 
have their name from some leading virtue : for 
virtue comes from vir the Latin name of a man, 



102 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

and courage is the peculiar distinction of a man. 
Now there are two distinct offices in this, a con- 
tempt of death, and of pain. We must then pro- 
vide ourselves with these ; if we would be men of 
virtue, or rather, if we would be men, because 
virtue takes its very name from vir, i.e. man. 

XIX. You may enquire perhaps how ? and 
such an enquiry is not amiss, for philosophy is 
ready with her assistance. Epicurus offers him- 
self to you, far from a bad man, or rather a very 
good one ; he advises no more than he knows ; 
Despise, saith he, pain. Who is it saith this ? the 
same who calls pain the greatest of all evils, not 
very consistently indeed. Let us hear him. If 
the pain is at the height, it must needs be short. 
I must have that over again, for I do not appre- 
hend what you mean by at the height or short. 
That is at the height, than which nothing is 
higher ; that is short, than which nothing is 
shorter. I do not regard the greatness of any 
pain, from which, by the shortness of its con- 
tinuance, I shall be delivered almost before it 
reaches me. But if the pain be as great as that 
of Philoctetes, it will appear great indeed to me, 
but yet not the greatest I am capable of; for the 
pain is confined to my foot : but my eye may 
pain me, I may have a pain in the head, sides, 
lungs, every part of me. It is far then from 
being at the height ; therefore, says he, pain of a 



OF CICERO. 103 

long continuance has more pleasure in it than 
uneasiness. Now I cannot bring myself to say, 
so great a man talks nonsense, but I imagine he 
laughs at us. My opinion is, that the greatest 
pain (I say, the greatest, though it may be ten 
atoms less than another) is not therefore short 
because acute ; I could name you a great many 
good men who have been tormented many years 
with the acutest pains of the gout. But this 
cautious man doth not determine the measure of 
that greatness ; nor, as I know, doth he fix what 
he means by great with regard to the pain, nor 
short with respect to its continuance. Let us 
pass him by then as one who says just nothing at 
all; and let us force him to acknowledge, not- 
withstanding he might behave himself somewhat 
boldly under his colic and his strangury, that no 
remedy against pain can be had from him who 
looks on pain as the greatest of all evils. We 
must apply then for relief elsewhere, and no 
where better to all appearance than from those 
who place the chief good in honesty, and the 
greatest evil in infamy. You dare not so much as 
groan, or discover the least uneasiness in their 
company, for virtue itself speaks to you through 
them. 

XX. Will you, when you may observe children 
at Lacedaemon, young men at Olympia, Barba- 
rians in the amphitheatre, receive deep wounds, 



104 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

and never once open their mouths ; will you, I 
say, when any pain twitches you, cry out like a 
woman ? should you not rather bear it with 
resolution and constancy ? and not cry, It is in- 
tolerable, nature cannot bear it. I hear what you 
say, boys bear this, led thereto by glory : some 
bear it through shame, many through fear ; and 
do we imagine that nature cannot bear what is 
borne by many, and in such different circum- 
stances ? nature not only bears it, but challenges 
it, for there is nothing with her preferable to it, 
nothing she desires more than credit and reputa- 
tion, than praise, than honour, and glory. I was 
desirous of describing this under many names, 
and I have used many, that you may have the 
clearer idea of it ; for I meant to say, that what- 
ever is desirable of itself, proceeding from virtue, 
or placed in virtue, and commendable on its own 
account (which I should sooner call the only good 
than the chief good) is what men should prefer 
above all things. As we declare thus of honesty, 
the contrary is due to infamy : nothing is so 
odious, so detestable, nothing so unworthy a man, 
which if you are convinced of (for at the begin- 
ning of this discourse you allowed, that there 
appeared to you more evil in infamy than in pain) 
what remains is, that you have the command over 
yourself. 

XXI. Though the expression may not seem 



OF CICERO. 105 

justifiable to bid you divide yourself, assign to 
one part of man command, to the other sub- 
mission, yet it is not without its elegancy. For 
the soul admits of a two-fold division, one of 
which partakes of reason, the other is without 
it ; when therefore we are ordered to give a law 
to ourselves, the meaning is, that reason should 
restrain our rashness. Every soul of man has 
naturally something soft, low, enervated in a 
manner, and languid. Were there nothing be- 
sides this, men would be the greatest of mon- 
sters ; but there is present to every man reason, 
which presides and gives law to all, which by 
improving itself, and making continual advances, 
becomes perfect virtue. It behoves a man then 
to take care, that reason has the command over 
that part to which obedience is assigned ; as a 
master over his slave, a general over his army, 
a father over his son. If that part of the soul 
misbehaves, which I call soft, if it gives itself up 
to lamentations, and womanish tears, it should 
be restrained, and committed to the care of 
friends and relations, for we often see those 
brought to order by shame, whom no reasons 
can affect. Therefore we should confine those 
like our servants, in safe custody, with chains. 
But those who have more resolution, yet are not 
so stout as they should be ; we should encourage 
with our advice, to behave as good soldiers, re- 



1 06 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

collecting themselves to maintain their honour. 
That wise man at Greece, in the Niptrse, doth not 
lament too much over his wounds, or rather he is 
moderate in his grief. 

Move slow, my friends, your hasty speed refrain, 
Lest by your motion you increase my pain. 

Pacuvius is better in this than Sophocles, for 
with him Ulysses bemoans his wounds too lament- 
ably ; for the very people who carried him after 
he was wounded, though his grief was moderate, 
yet considering the dignity of the man, did not 
scruple to say, 

E'en thou, Ulysses, long to war inur'd, 

Thy wounds, though great, too feebly hast endur'd- 

The wise poet understood that custom was no 
contemptible instructor how to bear pain. But 
the same complains with more decency, though in 
great pain, 

Assist, support me, never leave me so ; 
Unbind my wounds, oh ! execrable woe ! 

He begins to give way, but instantly checks 

himself. 

Away, begone, but cover first the sore ; 

For your rude hands but make my pains the more. 

Do you observe how he constrains himself, not 
that his bodily pains were less, but he corrects 
the sense of them ? Therefore in the conclusion 
of the Niptrae he blames others, even when he 
was dying. 



OF CICERO. 107 

Complaint on fortune may become the man, 
None but a woman will thus weeping stand. 

That soft place in his soul obeys his reason, 
as an abashed soldier doth his stern commander. 

XXII. Whenever a completely wise man shall 
appear (such indeed, we have never as yet seen, 
but the philosophers have described, in their 
writings, what sort of man he is to be, if ever he 
/is) ; such an one, or at least his perfect reason, 
will have the same authority over the inferior 
part as a good parent has over his dutiful chil- 
dren, he will bring it to obey his nod, without any 
trouble or pains. He will rouse himself, prepare 
and arm himself to oppose pain as he would an 
enemy. If you enquire what arms he will pro- 
vide himself with ; he will struggle with his pain, 
assume a resolution, will reason with himself; he 
will say thus to himself, Take care that you are 
guilty of nothing base, languid, or unmanly. He 
will turn over in his mind all the different kinds 
of honesty. Zeno of Elea will be presented to 
him, who suffered every thing rather than betray 
his confederates in the design of putting an end 
to the tyranny. He will reflect on Anaxarchus, 
the Democritian, who having fallen into the hands 
of Nicocreon king of Cyprus, without the least 
entreaty or refusal submitted to every kind of 
torture. Calanus, the Indian, will occur to him, 
an ignorant man, and a barbarian, born at the 



108 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

foot of Mount Caucasus, who committed himself 
to the flames by a free voluntary act. But we, if 
we have the tooth-ach, or a pain in the foot, or if 
the body be any ways affected, cannot bear it. 
Our sentiments of pain, as well as pleasure, are so 
trifling and effeminate, we are so enervated and 
dissolved, that we cannot bear the sting of a bee 
without crying out. But C. Marius, a plain 
countryman, but of a manly soul, when he was 
cut, as I mentioned above, at first refused to be 
tied down, and he is the first instance of any one's 
being cut without tying down ; why did others 
bear this afterwards from the force of example ? 
You see then pain is more in opinion than nature, 
and yet the same Marius is a proof that there is 
something very sharp in pain, for he would not 
submit to have the other thigh cut. So that he 
bore his pain with resolution ; but as a man, he 
was not willing to undergo any greater without 
evident cause. The whole then consists in this, to 
have the command over yourself: I have already 
told you what kind of command this is, and by 
considering what is most consistent with patience, 
fortitude, and greatness of soul, a man not only 
refrains himself, but by some means or other even 
mitigates pain itself. 

XXIII. Even as in a battle, the dastardly and 
timorous soldier throws away his shield on the 
first appearance of an enemy, and runs as fast as 



OF CICERO. 109 

lie can, and on that account loses his life some- 
times, though his body is never touched, when he 
who stands his ground meets with nothing like 
this : so, they who cannot bear the appearances of 
pain, throw themselves away, and give themselves 
up to affliction and dismay. But they that oppose 
it, are often more than a match for it. For the 
body has a certain resemblance to the soul : as 
burdens are the easier borne the more the body is 
exerted, and they crush us if we give way ; so 
the soul by exerting itself resists the whole 
weight that would oppress it ; but if it yields, it 
is so pressed, that it cannot support itself. And 
if we consider things truly, the soul should exert 
itself in every pursuit, for that is the only security 
for its doing its duty. But this should be prin- 
cipally regarded in pain, not to do any thing 
timidly, dastardly, basely, or slavishly, or effe- 
minately, and above all things we should dismiss 
and discharge that Philoctetean clamour. A man 
is allowed sometimes to groan, but yet seldom, 
but it is not sufferable even in a woman to howl ; 
and this is the very funeral lamentation which is 
forbidden by the twelve tables. Nor doth a wise 
or brave man ever groan, unless when he exerts 
himself to give his resolution greater force, as they 
that run in the stadium, make as much noise as 
they can. It is the same with the wrestlers ; but 
the boxers, when they aim a blow with the cestus 



110 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

at their adversary, give a groan, not because they 
are in pain, or from a sinking of their spirits, but 
because their whole body is upon the stretch 
when they throw out these groans, and the blow 
comes the stronger. 

XXIV. What ! they who would speak louder 
than ordinary, are they satisfied ^with working 
their jaws, sides, or tongue, or stretching the 
common organs of speech ? the whole body is at 
full stretch, if I may be allowed the expression, 
every nerve is exerted to assist their voice. I 
have actually seen M. Antony's knee touch the 
ground when he was speaking with vehemence for 
himself, with relation to the Varian law. As the 
engines you throw stones or darts with, throw 
them out with the greater force the more they 
are strained and drawn back, so it is in speaking, 
running, or boxing, the more people strain them- 
selves, the greater their force. Since therefore 
this exertion has so much attributed to it, we 
should apply it in pain, if it helps to strengthen 
the mind. But if it is a groan of lamentation, if 
it is weakness or abjectness ; I should scarce call 
him a man who complied with it. For even sup- 
posing that such groaning give any ease, it should 
be considered, whether it was consistent with a 
brave and resolute man. But, if it doth not ease 
our pain, why should we debase ourselves to no 
purpose ? for what is, more unbecoming in a man 



OF CICERO. HI 

than to cry like a woman? But this precept 
about pain is not confined to that ; we should 
apply this exertion of the soul to every thing 
else. Doth anger, rage, or lust prevail? We 
should have recourse to the same magazine, and 
apply to the same arms ; but since our subject is 
pain, we will let the others alone. To bear pain 
then sedately and calmly, it is of great use to 
consider with all our soul, as the saying is, how 
noble it is to do so, for we are naturally desirous 
(as I said before, nor can it be too often repeated) 
and very much inclined to what is honest, of 
which if we discover but the least glimpse, there 
is nothing we are not prepared to undergo and 
suffer to attain it. From this impulse of our 
minds, this tendency to true praise and honesty, 
such dangers are supported in war, brave men 
are not sensible of their wounds in action, or if 
they are sensible, prefer death to the departing 
but the least step from their honour. The Decii 
saw the shining swords of their enemies when 
they rushed into the battle. The dying nobly, 
and the glory, made all fear of death of little 
weight. Do you imagine that Epaminondas 
groaned when he perceived that his life flowed 
out with his blood ? for he left his country tri- 
umphing over the Lacedaemonians, whereas he 
found it in subjection to them. These are the 



1 1 2 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

comforts, these are the things that assuage the 
greatest pain. 

XXV. You may ask, how the case is in peace ? 
what is to be done at home ; how we are to 
behave in bed ? you bring me back to the philo- 
sophers, who seldom go to war. Among these, 
Dionysius of Heraclea, a man certainly of no 
resolution, having learned bravery of Zeno, 
quitted it on being in pain : for being tormented 
with a pain in his kidneys, in bewailing himself he 
cried out, that those things were false which he 
had formerly conceived of pain. Who, when his 
fellow-disciple Cleanthes asked him why he had 
changed his opinion, answered, Whoever had 
applied so much time to philosophy, and cannot 
bear pain ; may be a sufficient proof that pain is 
an evil. I have spent many years at philosophy, 
and yet cannot bear pain. Pain is therefore an 
evil. It is reported that Cleanthes on that struck 
his foot on the ground, and repeated a verse out 
of the Epigonae. 

Amphiaraus, hear'st thou this below ? 

He meant Zeno: he was sorry the other dege- 
nerated from him. 

But it was not so with our Posidonius, whom 
I have often seen myself, and I will tell you what 
Pompey used to say of him ; that when he came 
to Rhodes, on his leaving Syria, he had great 



OF CICERO. 1 1 3 

desire to hear Posidonius, but was informed that 
he was very ill of a severe fit of the gout : yet he 
had great inclination to pay a visit to so famous 
a philosopher. When he had seen him, and paid 
his compliments, and had spoken with great re- 
spect of him, he said he was very sorry that he 
could not have a lecture from him. But, indeed 
you may, replied the other, nor will I suffer any 
bodily pain to occasion so great* a man to visit 
me in vain. On this Pompey relates, that as he 
lay on his bed, he disputed gravely and copiously on 
this very subject, that nothing was good but what 
was honest : that in his paroxysms he would often 
say, Pain, it is to no purpose, notwithstanding 
you are troublesome, I will never acknowledge 
you an evil : and in general all honourable and 
illustrious labours become tolerable by disregard- 
ing them. 

XXV. Do we not observe, that where those ex- 
ercises called gymnastic are in esteem, those who 
enter the lists never concern themselves about dan- 
gers : where the praise of riding and hunting pre- 
vails, they who pursue this decline no pain. What 
shall I say of our own ambitious pursuits, or desire 
of honour? What fire will not candidates run 
through to gain a single vote ? Therefore Africanus 
had always in his hand the Socratic Xenophon, 
being particularly pleased with his saying, that the 
same labours were not equally heavy to the general 

i 



1 14 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

and to the common man, because honour itself 
made the labour lighter to the general. But yet, 
so it happens, that even with the illiterate vulgar, 
an opinion of honor prevails, though they cannot 
discern what it is. They are led by report and 
common opinion to look on that as honorable, which 
has the general voice. Not that I would have 
you, should the multitude be ever so fond of you, 
rely on their judgment, nor approve of what they 
think right ; you must use your own judgment. 
Should you have a pleasure in approving what is 
right, you will not only have the mastery over 
yourself, (which I recommended to you just now) 
but over every body, and every thing. Lay this 
down then, that a great capacity, and most lofty 
elevation of soul, which distinguishes itself most 
by despising and looking down with contempt on 
pain, is the most excellent of all things, and the 
more so, if it doth not depend on the people, nor 
aims at applause, but derives its satisfaction from 
itself. Besides, to me indeed every thing seems 
the more commendable, the less the people are 
courted, and the fewer eyes there are to see it. 
Not that you should avoid the public, for every 
generous action loves the public view ; yet no 
theatre for virtue is equal to a consciousness of 
it. 

XXVI. And let this be principally considered, 
that this bearing of pain, which I have often said 



OF CICERO. 115 

is to be strengthened by an exertion of the 
soul, should be the same in every thing. For 
you meet with many who, through a desire of 
victory, or for glory, or to maintain their rights, 
or their liberty, have boldly received wounds, 
and bore themselves up under them ; and the 
very same persons, by remitting from that in- 
tenseness of their minds, were unequal to 
bearing the pain of a disease. For they did not 
support themselves under their sufferings by 
reason or philosophy, but by inclination and glory. 
Therefore some barbarians and savage people are 
able to fight very stoutly with the sword, but 
cannot bear sickness like men : but the Grecians, 
men of no great courage, but as wise as human 
nature will admit of, cannot look an enemy in the 
face, yet the same will bear to be visited with 
sickness tolerably, and manly enough ; and the 
Cimbrians and Celtiberians are very alert in 
battle, but bemoan themselves in sickness ; for 
nothing can be consistent which has not reason 
for its foundation. But when you see those who 
are led by inclination or opinion, not retarded by 
pain in their pursuits, nor hindered from obtaining 
them, you should conclude, either that pain is no 
evil, or that, notwithstanding whatever is dis- 
agreeable, and contrary to nature, you may choose 
to call an evil, yet it is so very small, that it 



1 16 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

may so effectually be got the better of by virtue 
as quite to disappear. Which I would have 
you think of night and day ; for this argument 
will spread itself, and take up more room some- 
time or other, and not be confined to pain 
alone ; for if the motives to all our actions are 
to avoid disgrace and acquire honour, we may 
not only despise the stings of pain, but the storms 
of fortune, especially if we have recourse to 
that retreat which was our yesterday's subject. 
As, if some god had advised one who was pur- 
sued by pirates, to throw himself over-board, 
saying, there is something at hand to receive 
you, either a dolphin will take you up as it 
did Arion of Methymna, or those horses sent 
by Neptune to Pelops, (who are said to have 
carried chariots so rapidly as to be borne up by 
the waves) will receive you, and convey you 
• wherever you please, he would forego all fear : 
so, though your pains be ever so sharp and 
disagreeable, if they are not so great as to be 
intolerable, you see where you may betake your- 
self. I thought this would do for the present. 
But perhaps you still abide by your opinion. A. 
Not in the least, indeed ; and I hope I am freed 
by these two days' discourses from the fear of 
two things that I greatly dreaded. M. To- 
morrow then for rhetoric, as we were saying, 



OF CICERO. 117 

but I see we must not drop our philosophy. A. 
No, indeed, we will have the one in the fore- 
noon, this at the usual time. M. It shall be 
so, and I will comply with your very laudable 
inclinations. 



THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK. 



THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS. 



BOOK III. 



ON GRIEF OF MIND. 

What reason shall I assign, Brutus, why, as we 
consist of soul and body, the art of curing and 
preserving the body should be so much sought 
after, and the invention of it, as being so useful, 
should be ascribed to the immortal gods ; but the 
medicine of the soul should neither be the object of 
inquiry, whilst it was unknown, nor so much 
improved after its discovery, nor so well received 
or approved of by some, disagreeable, and looked 
on with an envious eye by many others ? Is it 
because the soul judges of the pains and disorders 
of the body, but we do not form any judgment of 
the soul by the body ? Hence it comes that the 
soul never judgeth of itself, but when that by 
which itself is judged is in a bad state. Had na- 
ture given us faculties for discerning and viewing 
herself, and could we go through life by keeping 
our eye on her, our best guide, no one certainly 
would be in want of philosophy or learning. 



OF CICERO. 1 19 

But, as it is, she has furnished us only with some 
few sparks, which we soon so extinguish by bad 
morals and depraved customs, that the light of 
nature is quite put out. The seeds of virtues are 
connatural to our constitutions, and were they 
suffered to come to maturity, would naturally 
conduct us to a happy life ; but now, as soon as 
we are born and received into the world, we are 
instantly familiarized to all kinds of depravity 
and wrong opinions ; so that we may be said 
almost to suck in error with our nurse's milk. 
When we return to our parents, and are put into 
the hands of tutors and governors, we imbibe so 
many errors, that truth gives place to falsehood, 
and nature herself to established opinion. To 
these we may add the poets ; who, on account of 
the appearance they exhibit of learning and wis- 
dom, are heard, read, and got by heart, and make 
a deep impression on our minds. But when to 
these are added the people, who are as it were one 
great body of instructors, and the multitude, who 
declare unanimously for vice, then are we alto- 
gether overwhelmed with bad opinions, and revolt 
entirely from nature ; so that they seem to deprive 
us of our best guide, who have ascribed all great- 
ness, worth, and excellence, to honour, and 
power, and popular glory, which indeed every 
excellent man aims at; but whilst he pursues 
that only true honour, which nature has in view, 



]<20 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

he finds himself busied in arrant trifles, and in 
pursuit of no conspicuous form of virtue, but a 
shadowy representation of glory. For glory is a 
real and express substance, not a mere shadow. 
It consists in the united praise of good men, the 
free voice of those who form true judgments of 
pre- eminent virtue ; it is as it were the very 
echo of virtue ; which being generally the atten- 
dant on laudable actions, should not be slighted 
by good men. But popular fame, which would 
pretend to imitate it, is hasty and inconsiderate, 
and generally commends wicked and immoral 
actions, and taints the appearance and beauty of 
the other, by assuming the resemblance of honesty. 
By not being able to discover the difference of 
these, some men, ignorant of real excellence, and 
in what it consists, have been the destruction of 
their country or of themselves. And thus the 
best men have erred, not so much in their in- 
tentions, as by a mistaken conduct. What, is 
there no cure for those who are carried away by 
the love of money, or the lust of pleasures, by 
which they are little short of madmen, which is the 
case of all weak people ? or is it because the dis- 
orders of the mind are less dangerous than those 
of the body ? or because the body will admit of a 
cure, but the soul is incurable ? 

III. But there are more disorders of the mind 
than of the body, for the generality, and of a 



OF CICERO. 1 2 1 

more dangerous nature ; for these very disorders 
are the more offensive, because they belong to the 
mind, and disturb that; and the mind, when 
disordered, is, as Ennius saith, in a constant error ; 
it can neither bear nor endure any thing, and is 
under the perpetual influence of desires. Now, 
what disorders can be worse to the body than 
these two distempers of the mind, (for I overlook 
others) weakness, and desires ? But how indeed 
can it be maintained that the soul cannot prescribe 
to itself, when she invented the very medicine for 
the body ? when, with regard to bodily cures, con- 
stitution and nature have a great share ; nor do 
all, who suffer themselves to be cured, find in- 
stantly that effect ; but those minds which are 
disposed to be cured, and submit to the precepts 
of the wise, may undoubtedly recover a healthy 
state ? Philosophy is certainly the medicine of the 
soul ; whose assistance we do not seek from 
abroad, as in bodily disorders, neither are we our- 
selves obliged to exert our utmost abilities in 
order to our cure. But as to philosophy in general, 
I have, I think, in my Hortensius sufficiently 
spoken of the credit and improvement it deserves : 
since that, indeed, I have continually either dis- 
puted or written on its most material branches : 
and I have laid down in these books what I 
disputed with my particular friends at my Tuscu- 
lum : but as I have spoken in the two former 



122 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

of pain and death, the third day of our disputa- 
tion shall make up this volume. When we came 
down into the academy, the day declining towards 
afternoon, I asked of one of those who were 
present a subject to discourse on ; then the 
business was carried on in this manner. 

IV. A. My opinion is, that a wise man is sub- 
ject to grief. M. What, and to the other pertur- 
bations of mind, as fears, lusts, anger ? For these 
are pretty much like what the Greeks call ««^. 
I might name them diseases, and that would be 
literal, but it is not agreeable to our way of 
speaking. For envy, delight, and pleasure, are 
all called by the Greeks diseases, being motions of 
the mind repugnant to reason: but we, I think, are 
right, in calling the same motions of a disturbed 
soul, perturbations, very seldom diseases ; unless 
it appears otherwise to you. A. I am of your 
opinion. M. And do you think a wise man sub- 
ject to these? A. Entirely, I think. M. Then 
that boasted wisdom is but of small account, if it 
differs so little from madness. A. What ? doth 
every commotion of the mind seem to you to be 
madness ? M. Not to me only ; but I apprehend, 
though I have often been surprised at it, that it 
appeared so to our ancestors many ages before 
Socrates : from whom is derived all that philoso- 
phy which relates to life and morals. A. How 
so ? M, Because the name madness implies a 



OF CICERO. 123 

sickness of the mind and disease, that is an un- 
soundness, and a distemperature of mind, which 
they call madness. The philosophers called all 
perturbations of the soul diseases, and their opi- 
nion was, that no fool was free from these ; but all 
that are diseased are unsound, and the minds of 
all fools are diseased, therefore all fools are mad. 
They held a soundness of the mind to depend 
on a certain tranquillity and steadiness ; they 
called that madness, where the mind was with- 
out these, because soundness was inconsistent 
with a perturbed mind, as well as a disordered 
body. 

V. Nor were they less ingenious in calling the 
state of the soul, devoid of the light of reason, 
' out of itself,' i. e. mad. From whence we may 
understand, that they who gave these names to 
things were of the same opinion with Socrates, 
that all silly people were unsound, which the 
Stoics, as received from him, have carefully pre- 
served ; for whatever mind is distempered, (and as 
I just now said, the philosophers call all perturbed 
motions of the mind distempers,) is no more sound 
than a body in a fit of sickness. Hence it is, 
that wisdom is the soundness of the mind, folly 
the distempered state, which is unsoundness, and 
that is madness ; and these are much better ex- 
pressed by the Latin words than the Greek : 
which you will find in many other places. But 



124 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

of that elsewhere : now, to our present purpose. 
The very force of the word speaks what, and 
what kind of thing it is we enquire after. For 
we must necessarily understand by the sound, 
those whose minds are under no perturbation from 
any motion, as it were a disease. They who are 
differently affected we must necessarily call un- 
sound. So that nothing is better than what is 
usual in Latin, to say, that they who are run 
away with by their lust or anger, have quitted 
the command over themselves ; though anger in- 
cludes lust, for anger is defined to be the lust of 
revenge. They then who are said not to be 
masters of themselves, are said to be so, because 
they are not under the government of reason, to 
which is assigned by nature the power over the 
whole soul. Why the Greeks should call this 
poma, I do not easily apprehend ; but we define it 
much better than they, for we distinguish this 
madness, which, being allied to folly, is more ex- 
tensive, from what is called a furor, or raving. 
The Greeks indeed would do so too, but they 
have no one word that will express it ; what we 
call furor > they call ^xayxoXia, as if the reason were 
affected only by a black bile, and not disturbed 
as often by a violent rage, or fear, or grief. Thus 
we say Athamas, Alcmaeon, Ajax, and Orestes, 
were raving ; because one affected in this manner 
was not allowed by the twelve tables to have the 



OF CICERO. 125 

management of his own affairs ; therefore the 
words are not, if he is mad, but, if he begins to 
be raving. For they looked upon madness to be 
an unsettled humour, that proceeded from not 
being of sound mind : yet such a one might 
take care of common things, execute the usual 
and customary duties of life : but they thought 
one that was raving to be totally blind ; which 
notwithstanding it is allowed to be greater than 
madness, is nevertheless of such a nature, that a 
wise man may be even subject to raving. But 
this is another question : we will return to our 
purpose. 

VI. I think you said that it was your opinion, 
a wise man was subject to grief. And so indeed 
I think. M. It is natural enough to think so, 
for we are not the offspring of a rock : but we 
have by nature something soft and tender in our 
souls, which may be put into a violent motion by 
grief, as by a storm ; nor did that Grantor, who 
was one of the most distinguished of our academy, 
say this amiss : ' I am by no means of their opi- 
nion, who talk so much in praise of I know not 
what insensibility, which neither can be, nor 
ought to be : I would choose/ saith he, ' never to 
be ill ; but should I be so, I should choose to 
have my feeling, either supposing there was to be 
an amputation, or any other separation of my 
body. For that insensibility cannot be but at the 



126 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

expense of some unnatural wildness of mind, or 
stupor of body.' But let us consider if to talk 
thus is not allowing that we are weak, and com- 
plying with our softness. Notwithstanding, let 
us be hardy enough, not only to lop off every 
arm of our miseries, but pluck up every fibre of 
their roots : yet still something perhaps may be 
left behind, so deep doth folly strike its roots : 
but whatever may be left, it should be no more 
than is necessary. But let us be persuaded of 
this, that unless the mind be in a sound state, 
which philosophy alone can effect, there can be 
no end of our miseries. Wherefore, as we begun, 
let us submit ourselves to it for a cure ; we may 
be cured if we please. I shall advance something 
farther. I shall not treat of grief alone, though 
that indeed is the principal thing ; but, as I pro- 
posed, of every disorder of the mind, as the 
Greeks call it : and first, with your leave, I shall 
treat it in the manner of the Stoics, whose 
method is to reduce their arguments into a 
little room ; then I shall enlarge more in my 
own way. 

VII. A man of courage relies on himself; I 
do not say is confident, because by a bad custom 
of speaking that is looked on as a fault, though 
the word is derived from confiding in yourself, 
which is commendable. He who relies on him- 
self, is certainly under no fear ; for there is a re- 



OF CICERO. 127 

pugnance betwixt this self-reliance and fear. Now 
whoever is subject to grief is subject to fear ; for 
whatever things we grieve at when present, we 
dread as hanging over us and approaching. Thus 
it comes about, that grief is repugnant to courage: 
it is very probable, therefore, that whoever is 
subject to grief, the same is liable to fear, and a 
kind of broken-heartedness and sinking. Now 
whenever these befal a man, he is in a servile 
state, and must own that he is overpowered. 
Whoever entertains these, must entertain timidity 
and cowardice. But these cannot befal a man of 
courage ; neither therefore can grief ; but the man 
of courage is the only wise man : therefore grief 
cannot befal the wise man. It is besides neces- 
sary, that whoever is brave, should be a man of a 
great soul ; a great soul is invincible : whoever is 
invincible looks down with contempt on all things 
here, and holds them as below him. But no one 
can despise those things on account of which he 
may be affected with grief: from whence it fol- 
lows, that a wise man is never affected with 
grief, for all wise men are brave, therefore a 
wise man is not subject to grief. As the eye, 
when disordered, is not in a disposition for per- 
forming its office well ; and the other parts, with 
the body itself, when dislocated, cannot perform 
their office and appointment ; so the mind, when 
disordered, is ill disposed to do its duty : the 



128 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

office of the mind is to use its reason well ; but 
the mind of a wise man is always in condition to 
make the best use of his reason, therefore is 
never out of order. But grief is a disorder of 
the mind, therefore a wise man will be always 
free from it. 

VIII. It is very probable, that what the Greeks 
mean by their Zaxppov*, is the temperate man with 
us, for they call all that virtue s^oo-w^v, which I 
one while name temperance, at another time mo- 
deration, nay sometimes modesty ; and I do not 
know whether that virtue may not be properly 
called frugality, which has a more confined mean- 
ing with the Greeks ; for they call frugal men 
% ? ri<Tiy.ovq, which implies only that they are useful : 
but it has a more extensive meaning ; for all ab- 
stinence, all innocency, (which the Greeks have 
no common name for, though they might have 
aZxoi&iocv, for innocency is that affection of mind 
which would offend no one) and several other 
virtues, are comprehended under frugality, which, 
were it not of the first rate, but confined into 
so small a compass as some imagine, the sirname 
of Piso would not have been in so great esteem. 
But as we allow him not the name of a frugal 
man (frugi), who either quits his post through 
fear, which is cowardice ; or who reserves to his 
own use what was privately committed to his 
keeping, which is injustice ; or who misbehaves 



OF CICERO, 129 

through rashness, which is folly ; for that reason 
the word frugality takes in these three virtues of 
fortitude, justice, and prudence, though this is 
common with all virtues, for they are all con- 
nected and knit together. Let us allow then 
frugality to be the other and fourth virtue ; the 
peculiar property of which seems to be, to govern 
and appease all tendencies to too eager a desire 
after any thing, to refrain lust, and preserve a de- 
cent steadiness in every thing. The vice in con- 
trast to this, is called prodigality. Frugality 
I imagine is derived from fruits, the best thing 
the earth produces. Whoever is frugal then, or 
if it is more agreeable to you, whoever is mode- 
rate, temperate, such a one must of course be 
constant ; whoever is constant, must be quiet : 
the quiet man must be void of all perturbation, 
therefore of grief likewise : and these are the 
properties of a wise man; therefore a wise man 
must be without grief. 

IX. So that Dionysius of Heraclea is right 
when, upon this complaint of Achilles in Homer, 

Anger and rage my breast inflame, 

My glory tarnished, and since lost my fame, 

he reasons thus : Is the hand as it should be, 
when it is affected with a swelling, or is any 
other member of the body when it is not in its 
natural state ? Must not the mind then, when it is 
puffed up, or distended, be out of order ? But the 



130 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

mind of a wise man is without any disorder; 
it never swells, or is puffed up ; but the mind 
in anger is otherwise. A wise man therefore is 
never angry ; for when he is angry, he lusts after 
something, for whoever is angry naturally has a 
longing desire to give all the pain he can to the 
person he thinks has injured him; but whoever 
has this earnest desire must necessarily be much 
pleased with the accomplishment of his wishes ; 
hence he is delighted with his neighbour's misery ; 
which as a wise man is not capable of, he is not 
capable of anger. But should a wise man be 
subject to grief, he may likewise be sub- 
ject to anger, from which being free, he must 
be void of grief. Besides, could a wise man 
be subject to grief, he might be so to pity, he 
might be open to a disposition for envy : I do not 
say he might be envious, for that consists of the 
very act of envying. 

X. Therefore compassion and envy are con- 
sistent in the same man ; for whoever is uneasy at 
any one's adversity, is uneasy at another's pros- 
perity : as Theophrastus laments the loss of his 
companion Callisthenes, and is disturbed at the 
success of Alexander ; therefore he saith, that 
Callisthenes met with a man of great power and 
success, but who did not know how to make use 
of his good fortune ; and as pity is an uneasiness 
arising from the misfortunes of another, so envy 



OF CICERO. 1 3 1 

is an uneasiness that proceeds from the good suc- 
cess of another : therefore whoever is capable 
of pity, is capable of envy. But a wise man is 
incapable of envy, and consequently of pity. For 
were a wise man used to grieve, to pity would be 
familiar to him ; therefore to grieve, is far from a 
wise man. Though these reasonings of the 
Stoics, and their conclusions, are rather stiff and 
contracted, and require a more diffuse and free 
way, yet great stress is to be laid on the opinions 
of those men, who have a peculiar bold and manly 
turn of thought. For our particular friends the 
Peripatetics, notwithstanding all their erudition, 
gravity, and flow of words, do not satisfy me 
about the moderation of these disorders and dis- 
eases of the soul, for every evil, though moderate, 
is in its nature great. But our business is to 
divest our wise man of all evil ; for as the body 
is not sound, though but slightly affected, so the 
mind under any moderate disorder loses its sound- 
ness : therefore the Romans have with their usual 
skill called trouble, anguish, vexation, on account 
of the analogy between a troubled mind and a 
diseased body, disorders. The Greeks call all 
perturbation of mind by pretty nearly the same 
name, for they name every turbid motion of the 
soul na0o$, i. e. a distemper. But we have given 
them a more proper name ; for a disorder of mind 
is very like a disease of the body. But lust doth 



132 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

not resemble sickness ; neither doth immoderate 
joy, which is a high and exulting pleasure of the 
mind. Fear, too, is not very like a distemper, 
though it borders upon grief of mind, but properly 
as sickness of the body, it is so called from its 
connexion with pain ; the same may be said of 
this grief : therefore I must explain whence this 
pain proceeds, u e. the cause that occasions this 
grief, as it were a sickness of the body. For 
as physicians think they have found out the cure, 
when they have discovered the cause of the 
distemper, so we shall discover the method of 
cure when the cause is found out. 

XI. The whole cause then is in opinion, not 
indeed of this grief alone, but of every other dis- 
order of the mind ; which are of four sorts, but 
consisting of many parts. For as every disorder 
or perturbation is a motion of the mind, either 
devoid of reason, or in despite of reason, or in diso- 
bedience to reason, and that motion is incited by 
an opinion of good and evil ; these four perturba- 
tions are divided equally into two parts : for two 
of them proceed from an opinion of good ; one of 
which is an exulting pleasure, L e. a joy elate be- 
yond measure, arising from an opinion of some pre- 
sent great good : the other, which may be rightly 
called either a desire or a lust, is an immoderate 
inclination after some conceived great good, in 
disobedience to reason. Therefore these two 



OF CICERO. 



kinds, the exulting pleasure, and the lust, have 
their rise from an opinion of good, as the other 
two, fear and grief, from that of evil. For fear 
is an opinion of some great evil hanging over us ; 
and grief is an opinion of some great evil present * 
and indeed it is a fresh conceived opinion of such 
an evil, that to grieve at it seems right. It is 
of that kind, that he who is uneasy at it thinks he 
has good reason to be so. Now we should exert 
our utmost efforts to oppose these perturbations, 
which are, as it were, so many furies let loose 
upon us by folly, if we are desirous to pass 
the share of life that is allotted us with any ease 
or satisfaction. But of the others I shall speak 
elsewhere : our business at present is to drive 
away grief if we can, for that is what I proposed ; 
as you said it was your opinion a wise man might 
be subject to grief, which I can by no means 
allow of; for it is a frightful, horrid, and detesta- 
ble thing, which we should fly from with our ut- 
most efforts, with wind and tide, as I may say. 

XII. That descendant of Tantalus, how doth 
he appear to you ? He who sprung from Pelops, 
who formerly stole Hippodamia from her father- 
in-law king (Enomaus, and married her by force ? 
He who was descnded from Jupiter himself, — 
how broken-hearted doth he seem ! 

Stand off, my friends, nor come within my shade, 
That no pollutions your sound hearts pervade, 
So foul a stain my body doth partake. 



134 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

Will you condemn yourself, Thyestes, and deprive 
yourself of life, on account of the greatness of 
another's crime ? What ! do you not look upon 
the son of the god of light, as unworthy his 
father's shining on him ? 

Hollow his eyes, his body worn away, 
His furrow'd cheeks his frequent tears betray; 
His beard neglected, his combined hairs, 
Rough and uneomb'd, bespeak his bitter cares. 

foolish (Eta, these are evils which you yourself 
are the cause of, and not occasioned by the acci- 
dents that befel you ; and that you should behave 
thus, even when you had been inured to your dis- 
tress, and after the first swelling of the mind had 
subsided ! whereas grief consists (as I shall show) 
in the notion of some recent evil : but your grief, 

1 warrant you, proceeded from the loss of your king- 
dom, not your daughter ; for you hated her, and 
perhaps with reason, but you could not calmly 
bear to part with your kingdom. But surely it is 
an impudent grief which preys upon a man for not 
being able to command those that are free. 
Dionysius, it is true, the tyrant of Syracuse, when 
driven from his country taught a school at Corinth ; 
so incapable was he of living without some autho- 
rity. What could be more impudent than Tar- 
quin's making war against those who could not 
bear his tyranny ; who, when he could not recover 
his kingdom by the forces of the Veientes and 



OF CICERO. 3 35 

the Latins, is said to have betaken himself to 
Cuma, and to have died in that city, of old age 
and grief! Do you then think it can befal a 
wise man to be oppressed with grief, i. e. with 
misery ? for, as all perturbation is misery, grief is 
the rack itself; lust is attended with heat ; exult- 
ing joy with levity ; fear with a meanness ; but 
grief with something greater than these ; it con- 
sumes, torments, afflicts, and disgraces a man ; it 
tears him, preys upon him, and quite puts an end 
to him. If we do not divest ourselves so of it, as 
to throw it quite off, we cannot be free from 
misery. And it is clear that there must be grief, 
where any thing has the appearance of a present 
sore and oppressing evil. Epicurus is of opinion, 
that grief arises naturally from the imagination of 
any evil ; that whosoever is eye-witness of any 
great misfortune, immediately conceives the like 
may befal himself, and becomes sad instantly on 
it. The Cyrenaics think, that grief doth not 
arise from every kind of evil, but from unex- 
pected, unforeseen evil, and that is indeed of no 
small power to the heightening grief; for what- 
soever comes of a sudden, is harder to bear. 
Hence these lines are deservedly commended : 

I knew my son, when first he drew his breath, 
Destin'd by fate to an untimely death ; 
And when I sent him to defend the Greeks, 
Blows were his errand, not your sportive freaks. 

Therefore this ruminating beforehand upon evils 



136 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

which you see at distance, makes their approach 
more tolerable ; and on this account, what Euri- 
pides makes Theseus say, is much commended. 
You will give me leave to translate them into 
Latin, as is usual with me, 

I treasurM up what some learn'd sage did tell, 

And on my future misery did dwell ; 

I thought of bitter death, of being drove 

Far from my home by exile, and I strove 

With every evil to possess my mind, 

That, when they came, I the less care might find. 

But Euripides speaks that of himself, which 
Theseus said he had heard from some learned 
man, for he was a hearer of Anaxagoras : who, 
as they relate, on hearing of the death of his son, 
said, "I knew my son was mortal;" which speech 
seems to intimate that such things afflict those 
who have not thought on them before. Therefore 
there is no doubt but that all evils are the heavier 
from not being foreseen. Though, notwith- 
standing that this circumstance alone doth not 
occasion the greatest grief; yet as the mind, by 
foreseeing and preparing for it, makes all grief 
the less, a man should consider all that may befal 
him in this life ; and certainly the excellence of 
wisdom consists in taking a near view of things, 
and gaining a thorough experience in all human 
affairs ; in not being surprised when any thing 
happens; and in thinking, before the event of 
things, that there is nothing but what may come 



OF CICERO. 1 37 

to pass. Wherefore, at the very time that our 
affairs are in the best situation, at that very 
moment we should be most thoughtful how to 
bear a change of fortune. A traveller, at his 
return home, ought to be aware of such things as 
dangers, losses, &c. the debauchery of his son, the 
death of his wife, or a daughter's illness. He 
should consider that these are common accidents, 
and may happen to him, and should be no news 
to him if they do happen ; but if things fall out 
better than he expected, he may look upon it as 
clear gain. 

XV. Therefore, as Terence has so well ex- 
pressed what he borrowed from philosophy, shall 
not we, the fountain from whence he drew it, say 
the same in a better manner, and abide by it more 
steadily ? Hence is that same steady countenance, 
which, according to Xantippe, her husband 
Socrates always had : she never observed any 
difference in his looks when he went out, and 
when he came home. Yet the look of that old 
Roman M. Crassus, who, as Lucilius saith, never 
smiled but once in his lifetime, was not of this kind, 
but placid and serene, for so we are told. He 
indeed might well have the same look who never 
changed his mind, from whence the countenance 
has its expression. So that I am ready to borrow 
of the Cyrenaics those arms against the accidents 
and events of life, by means of which, by long pre- 



138 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

meditation, they break the force of all approaching 
evils ; and at the same time, I think that those 
very evils themselves arise more from opinion 
than nature; for if they were real, no forecast 
could make them lighter. But I shall speak more 
particularly to these when I shall have first con- 
sidered Epicurus's opinion, who thinks that all 
must necessarily be uneasy who perceive them- 
selves in any evils, let them be either foreseen and 
expected, or habitual to them; for, with him, 
evils are not the less by reason of their continu- 
ance, nor the lighter for having been foreseen; 
and it is folly to ruminate on evils to come, or 
that, perhaps, may never come ; every evil is dis- 
agreeable enough when it doth come: but he 
who is constantly considering that some evil may 
befal him, charges himself with a perpetual evil, 
for should such evil never light on him, he volun- 
tarily takes to himself unnecessary misery, so that 
he is under constant uneasiness, whether he meets 
with any evil, or only thinks of it. But he places 
the alleviation of grief on two things, an avoca- 
tion from thinking on evil, and a call to the con- 
templation of pleasure. For he thinks the mind 
may be under the power of reason, and follow 
her directions : he forbids us then to mind trouble, 
and calls us off from sorrowful reflections ; he 
throws a mist over the contemplation of misery. 
Having sounded a retreat from these, he drives 



OF CICERO. 139 

our thoughts on, and encourages them to view 
and engage the whole mind in the various plea- 
sures, with which he thinks the life of a wise man 
abounds, either from reflecting on the past, or the 
hope of what is to come. I have said these things 
in my own way, the Epicureans have theirs; 
what they say is our business, how they say it is 
of little consequence. 

XVI. In the first place, they are wrong in for- 
bidding men to premeditate on futurity, for there 
is nothing that breaks the edge of grief and 
lightens it more, than considering, all life long, 
that there is nothing but what may happen; than 
considering what human nature is, on what con- 
ditions life was given, and how we may comply 
with them. The effect of which is, not to be 
always grieving, but never; for whoever reflects 
on the nature of things, the various turns of life, 
the weakness of human nature, grieves indeed at 
that reflection ; but that grief becomes him as a 
wise man; for he gains these two points by it; 
when he is considering the state of human nature, 
he is enjoying all the advantage of philosophy, 
and is provided with a triple medicine against 
adversity. The first is, that he has long reflected 
that such things might befal him, which reflection 
alone contributes much towards lessening all mis- 
fortunes: the next is, that he is persuaded, that 
we should submit to the condition of human 



140 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

nature: the last is, that he discovers what is 
blameable to be the only evil. But it is not your 
fault that something lights on you, which it was 
impossible for man to avoid ; for that withdrawing 
of our thoughts he recommends, when he calls us 
off from contemplating on our misfortunes, is 
imaginary ; for it is not in our power to dissem- 
ble or forget those evils that lie heavy on us ; 
they tear, vex, and sting us, they burn us up, and 
leave no breathing-time ; and do you order us to 
forget them, which is against nature, and at the 
same time deprive us of the only assistance na- 
ture affords, the being accustomed to them, 
which, though it is a slow cure that time brings, is 
a very powerful one ? You order me to employ 
my thoughts on something good, and forget my 
misfortunes. You would say something, and 
worthy a great philosopher, if you thought those 
things good which are best suited to the dignity 
of human nature. 

XVII. Should Pythagoras, Socrates, or Plato, 
say to me, why are you dejected, or grieve ? 
Why do you faint, and yield to fortune, who 
perhaps may have power to harass and disturb 
you, but should not quite unman you ? Virtue 
has great force, rouse your virtues if they droop. 
Take fortitude for your guide, which will give 
you such spirits, that you will despise every thing 
that can befal man, and look on them as trifles. 



OF CICERO. 141 

Join to this temperance, which is moderation, and 
which was just now called frugality, which will 
not suffer you to do any thing base or bad ; 
for what is worse or baser than an effeminate 
man ? Not even justice will suffer you to do so, 
which seems to have the least weight in this 
affair, which notwithstanding will inform you that 
you are doubly unjust: when you require what doth 
not belong to you, that you who are born mortal, 
should be in the condition of the immortals, and 
take it much to heart that you are to restore what 
was lent you. What answer will you make to 
prudence, who acquaints you that she is a virtue 
sufficient of herself, both for a good life and a 
happy one ? whom, it would be unreasonable to 
commend and so much desire, unless she were in- 
dependent, having every thing centring in herself, 
and not obliged to look out for any supply, being 
self-sufficient. Now, Epicurus, if you invite me 
to such goods as these, I will obey, follow, and 
attend you as my guide, and even forget, as you 
order me, my misfortunes ; and I do this much 
more readily from a persuasion that they are not 
to be ranked amongst evils. But you are for 
bringing my thoughts over to pleasure. What 
pleasures ? pleasures of the body, I imagine, or 
such as are recollected or presumed on account of 
the body. Is this all ? Do I explain your opinion 
right ? for his disciples used to deny that we un- 



142 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

derstand Epicurus. This is what he saith, 
what that curious fellow old Zeno, who is one of 
the sharpest of them, used in my hearing at Ath 
to enforce and talk so loudly of; that he al 
was happy, who could enjoy present pleasure, 
and who was persuaded that he should enjoy 
it without pain, either all or the greatest part of 
his life ; or if should any pain interfere, if it was the 
sharpest, it must be short ; should it he of longer 
continuance, it would have more of sweet than 
bitter in it : that whosoever reflected on these 
things would be happy, especially if satisfied with 
the good things he had enjoyed, without fear of 
death, or the gods. 

XVIII. You have here a representation of a 
happy life according to Epicurus, in the words of 
Zeno, so that there is no room for contradiction. 
What then ? Can the proposing and thinking of 
such a life make Thyestes 5 grief the less, or (Eta's, 
of whom I spoke above, or that of Telamon, who 
was driven from his country to penury and banish- 
ment? on whom they exclaimed thus: 

Is this the man surpassing glory rais'd ? 

Is this that Telamon so highly prais'd 

By wondering Greece, at whose sight, like the sun, 

All others with diminish'd lustre shone ? 

Now, should any one like him be depressed 
with the loss of his fortune, he must apply to 
those old grave philosophers for relief, not to 



OF CICERO. 143 

these voluptuaries : for what great good do they 
promise? Allow we, that to be without pain is 
the chief good ? yet that is not called pleasure. 
But it is not necessary at present to go through 
the whole : the question is, if by advancing thus 
far we shall abate our grief? Grant that to be in 
pain is the greatest evil; whosoever then has 
proceeded so far as not to be in pain, is he there- 
fore in immediate possession of the greatest good ? 
What, Epicurus, do we use any evasions, and not 
allow in our own words the same to be pleasure, 
which you are used to boast of with such assu- 
rance? Are these your words or not? This is 
what you say in that book which contains all the 
doctrine of your school. I will perform the office 
of an interpreter, lest any should imagine I have 
invented. Thus you speak : * Nor can I form 
any notion of the chief good, abstracted from 
those pleasures which are perceived by taste, or 
from what depends on hearing music, or ab- 
stracted from ideas raised by external objects, 
which are agreeable motions ; or those other plea- 
sures, which are perceived by the whole man from 
his senses ; nor can the pleasures of the mind be 
any ways said to constitute the only good ; for I 
always perceived my mind to be pleased with 
the hopes of enjoying those things I mentioned 
above, and presuming I should enjoy them with- 
out any interruption from pain :" and from these 



144 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

words any "one may understand what pleasure 
Epicurus was acquainted with. Then he speaks 
thus, a little lower down ; " I have often enquired 
of those who are reputed to be wise men what 
would be the remaining good, if they should 
withdraw these, unless they meant to give us no- 
thing but words ? I could never learn any thing 
from them ; and unless they choose that all virtue 
and wisdom should vanish and come to nothing, 
they must say with me, that the only road lies in 
those pleasures which I mentioned above." What 
follows is much the same, and his whole book on 
the chief good every where abounds with the 
same opinions. Will you then invite Telamon to 
this kind of life to ease his grief? and should you 
observe any of your friends under affliction, would 
you prescribe to him a sturgeon before a treatise 
of Socrates ? or a concert rather than Plato ? or 
lay before him the beauty and variety of some 
garden, present him with a nosegay, burn per- 
fumes, and bid him be crowned with a garland of 
roses and woodbines ? Should you add one thing 
more, you would certainly wipe out all his grief. 

XIX. Epicurus must allow of these; or he 
must take out of his book what I just now said 
was a literal translation ; or rather he must de- 
stroy his whole book, for it is stuffed with plea- 
sures. We must enquire, then, how we can ease 
him of his grief, who can say thus : 



OF CICERO. 145 

My present state proceeds from fortune's stings ; 
By birth I boast of a descent from kings ; 
Hence may you see from what a noble height 
I'm sunk by fortune to this abject plight. 

What ! to ease his grief, must we mix him a cup 
of sweet wine, or something of that kind ? Lo ! 
the same poet presents us with another somewhere 
else: 

I, Hector, once so great, now claim your aid. 
We should assist her, for she looks out for help. 

Where shall I now apply, where seek support? 
Where hence betake me, or to whom resort? 
No means remain of comfort or of joy, 
In flames my palace, and in ruins Troy ; 
Each wall, so late superb, deformed nods, 
And not an altar left t' appease the gods. 

You know what should follow, and particularly 
this : 

Of father, country, and of friends bereft. 
Not one of all those sumptuous temples left ; 
Which, whilst the fortune of our house did stand, 
With rich wrought ceilings spoke the artist's hand. 

O excellent poet! though despised by those 
who sing the verses of Euphorion. He is sensible 
that all things which come on a sudden are harder 
to be borne. Therefore, when he had set off the 
riches of Priam to the best advantage, which had 
the appearance of a long continuance, what doth 
he add ? 

Lo, these all perish'd in one blazing pile j 
The foe old Priam of his life beguiled, 
And with his blood thy altar, Jove, defiled. 

Admirable poetry ! There is something mournful 

L 

/ 



146 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

in the subject, as well as the words and measure. 
We must drive away this grief of hers : how is 
that to be done ? Shall we lay her on a bed of 
down ; introduce a singer ; shall we burn cedar, 
or present her with some pleasant liquor, and 
provide her something to eat ? Are these the good 
things which remove the most afflicting grief? for 
you but just now said you knew of no other good. 
I should agree with Epicurus that we ought to be 
called off from grief to contemplate good things," 
were it once settled what was good. 

XX. It may be said, What ! do you imagine 
Epicurus really meant these, and that he main- 
tained any thing so sensual ? Indeed I do not 
imagine so, for I am sensible he has said many 
excellent things, and with great gravity. There- 
fore, as I said before, I am speaking of his acute- 
ness, not his morals. Though he should hold 
those pleasures in contempt, which he just now 
commended, yet I must remember wherein he- 
places the chief good. He did not barely say this, 
but he has explained what he would say : he saith, 
that taste, embracings, sports, and 'music, and 
those forms which affect the eyes with pleasure, 
are the chief good. Have I invented this ? have 
I misrepresented him ? I should be glad to be 
confuted, for whajt am I endeavouring at, but to 
clear up truth in every question ? Well, but the 
same saith, that pleasure is at its height where 



OF CICERO. 147 

pain ceases, and that to be free from all pain is the 
greatest pleasure. Here are three very great 
mistakes in a very few words. One is, that he 
contradicts himself; for, but just now, he could 
not imagine any thing good, unless the senses 
were in a manner tickled with some pleasure ; but 
now, to be free from pain is the highest pleasure. 
Can any one contradict himself more ? The other 
mistake is, that where there is naturally a threefold 
division, the first, to be pleased ; next, not to be 
in pain ; the last, to be equally distant from 
pleasure and pain : he imagines the first and the 
last, to be the same, and makes no difference be- 
twixt pleasure and a cessation of pain. The last 
mistake is in common with some others ; which is 
this, that as virtue is the most desirable thing, 
and as philosophy was investigated for the attain- 
ment of it, he has separated the chief good from 
virtue: but he commends virtue, and that fre- 
quently ; and indeed C. Gracchus, when he had 
made the largest distributions of the public 
money, and had exhausted the treasury, yet spoke 
much of preserving it. What signifies what they 
say, when we see what they do ? That Piso who 
was surnamed Frugal, harangued always against 
the law that was proposed for distributing the 
corn, but when it had passed, though a consular 
man, he came to receive the corn. Gracchus 
observed Piso standing in the court, and asked 



148 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

him, in the hearing of the people, how it was con- 
sistent for him to take corn by a law he had 
himself opposed ? " I was against your dividing 
my goods to every man as you thought proper, 
but, as you do so, I claim my share." Did not 
this grave and wise man sufficiently show that 
the public revenue was dissipated by the Sem- 
pronian law ? Read Gracchus's speeches, and 
you will pronounce him patron of the treasury. 
Epicurus denies that any one can live pleasantly 
who doth not lead a life of virtue ; he denies that 
fortune has any power over a wise man : he 
prefers a spare diet to great plenty ; maintains 
a wise man to be always happy : — all these things 
become a philosopher to say, but they are not 
consistent with pleasure. But the reply is, that 
he doth not mean that pleasure ; let him mean 
any pleasure, it must be such a one as makes 
no part of virtue. But suppose we are mistaken 
as to his pleasure, are we so too as to pain ? I 
maintain therefore the impropriety of that man's 
talking of virtue, who would measure every great 
evil by pain. 

XXI. And indeed the Epicureans, those best 
of men, for there is no order of men more inno- 
cent, complain, that I take great pains to inveigh 
against Epicurus, as if we were rivals for some ho- 
nour or distinction. I place the chief good in the 
mind, he in the body ; I in virtue, he in pleasure ; 



OP CICERO. 149 

and the Epicureans are up in arms, and implore 
the assistance of their neighbours, and many are 
ready to fly to their aid. But, as for my part, I 
declare I am very indifferent about the matter, 
let it take what turn it may. For what! is the 
contention about the Punic war ? on which very 
subject, though M. Cato and L. Lentulus were of 
different opinions, there was no difference betwixt 
them. These behave with too much heat, especially 
as the cause they would defend is no very repu- 
table one, and for which they dare not plead either 
in the senate, or assembly of the people, before the 
army or the censors : but I will dispute this with 
them another time, and with such temper that no 
difference may arise, for I shall be ready to yield 
to their opinions when founded on truth. Only I 
must give them this advice ; That were it ever so 
true, that a wise man regards nothing but the 
body ; or, to express myself with more decency, has 
no view but to please himself, or to make all things 
depend on his own advantage ; as such things are 
not very commendable, they should confine them 
to their own breasts, and leave off to talk with 
that parade of them. 

XXII. What remains is the opinion of the 
Cyrenaics, who think that men grieve when any 
thing happens unexpectedly. And that is, indeed, 
as I said before, a great aggravation ; and I know 
that it appeared so to Chrysippus, " Whatever falls 



150 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

out unexpected is so much the heavier." But the 
whole does not turn on this ; though the sudden 
approach of an enemy sometimes occasions more 
confusion than when you expected him, and a 
sudden storm at sea throws the sailors into a 
greater fright than when they foresaw it, and it 
is the same in many cases. But when you care- 
fully consider the nature of what was expected, 
you will find nothing more, than that all things 
which come on a sudden appear greater ; and this 
upon two accounts. The first is, that you have 
not time to consider how great the accident is :• 
the next is, when you are persuaded you could 
have guarded against them had you foreseen them, 
the misfortune seemingly contracted by your own 
fault makes your grief the greater. That it is so, 
time evinces ; which, as it advances, brings with it 
so much ease, that though the same misfortunes 
continue, the grief not only becomes the less, but 
in some cases is entirely removed. Many Cartha- 
ginians were slaves at Rome, many Macedonians 
when Perseus their king was taken prisoner. I saw, 
too, when I was a young man, some Corinthians in 
the Peloponnesus. They might all have lamented 
with Andromache. 

All these I savv 

But they had perhaps given over lamenting them- 
selves, for by their countenances, speech, and 
other gestures, you might have taken them for 



OF CICERO. \5l 

Argives or Sicyonians. And I myself was more 
concerned at the ruined walls of Corinth, than the. 
Corinthians themselves were, whose minds by 
frequent reflection and time had acquired a cal- 
lousness. I have read a book of Clitomachus, 
which he sent to his captive citizens, to comfort 
them on the ruin of Carthage; there is in it a 
disputation written by Carneades, which, as Clito- 
machus saith, he had inserted into his 'com- 
mentary ; the subject was, " Whether a wise~man 
should seem to grieve at the captivity of his 
country ?" You have there what Carneades said 
against it. There the philosopher applies such a 
strong medicine to a fresh grief, as would be quite 
unnecessary in one of any continuance ; nor, had 
this very book been sent to the captives some 
years after, would it have found any wounds to 
cure, but scars ; for grief, by a gentle progress 
and slow degrees, wears away imperceptibly. 
Not that the nature of things is altered, or can be^ 
but that custom teaches what reason should, that 
those things lose their weight which before seemed 
to be of some consequence. 

XXIII. It may be said, What occasion is 
there to apply to reason, or any consolation 
that we generally make use of, to ease the 
grief of the afflicted ? For we have this always 
at hand, that there is nothing but what we may 
expect. But how will any one be enabled to bear 



152 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

his misfortunes the better by knowing that they 
are unavoidable ? Saying thus subtracts nothing 
from the sum of the grief: it infers only that 
nothing has fallen out but what might have been 
thought of; and yet this manner of speaking has 
some little consolation in it, but, I apprehend, not 
much. Therefore those unlooked-for things have 
not so much force as to give rise to all our grief; 
the blow perhaps may fall the heavier, but what- 
ever falls out doth not appear the greater on that 
account ; no, it is because it has lately happened, 
not because it has befallen us unexpected, that 
makes it seem the greater. There are two ways 
then of discerning the truth, not only of things 
that seem evil, but of those that have the appear- 
ance of good. For we either enquire into the na- 
ture of the thing, what, and how great it is, as 
sometimes with regard to poverty ; the burden of 
which we may lighten when by our disputations 
we show how very little, how few things nature 
requires ; or without any subtle arguing we refer 
them to examples, as here we instance in a So- 
crates^ there in a Diogenes, and then again that 
line in Caecilius, 

Wisdom is oft conceal'd in mean attire. 

For as poverty is of equal weight with all, what 
reason can be given, why what was borne by Fa- 
bricius should be insupportable by others ? Of a 
piece with this is that other way of comforting, 



OF CICERO. 153 

that nothing happens but what is common to 
human nature : now this argument doth not only 
inform us what human nature is, but implies 
that all things are tolerable which others have 
borne and can bear. 

XXIV. Is poverty the subject? they tell you of 
many who have submitted to it with patience. Is 
it the contempt of honours? they acquaint you with 
some who never enjoyed any, and were the hap- 
pier for it ; and of those who have preferred a 
private retired life to public employment, men- 
tioning their names with respect : they tell you 
of the verse of that most powerful king, who 
praises an old man, and pronounces him happy, 
who could reach old age in obscurity and without 
notice. Thus too they have examples for those 
who are deprived of their children ; they who are 
under any great grief are comforted by instances 
of like affliction : thus every misfortune becomes 
the less by others having undergone the same. 
Reflection thus discovers to us how much opinion 
had imposed on us. And this is what that Tela- 
mon declares, " I knew my son was mortal ;" and 
thus Theseus, " I on my future misery did dwell;" 
and Anaxagoras, * I knew my son was mortal." 
All these, by frequently reflecting on human 
affairs, discovered that they were by no means to 
be estimated by vulgar opinions : and indeed it 
seems to me to be pretty much the same with 



154 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

those who consider beforehand as with those who 
have their remedy from time, excepting that a 
kind of reason cures the one, the other is pro- 
vided with this by nature ; discovering thereby, 
that what was imagined to be the greatest evil, is 
not so great as to defeat the happiness of life. 
Thus it comes about, that the hurt which was not 
foreseen is greater, and not, as they suppose, that 
when the like misfortunes befal two different peo- 
ple, he only of them is affected with grief on whom 
it lights unexpectedly. So that some, under the 
oppression of grief, are said to have borne it worse 
on hearing of this common condition of man, that 
we are born under such conditions as render it 
impossible for a man to be exempt from all evil. 

XXV. For this reason Carneades, as I see it 
in our Antiochus, used to blame Chrysippus for 
commending these verses of Euripides : 

Man, doom'd to care, to pain, disease, and strife, 
Walks his short journey thro' the vale of life : 
Watchful attends the cradle and the grave, 
And passing generations longs to save : 
Last dies himself: yet wherefore should we mourn? 
For man must to his kindred dust return ; 
Submit to the destroying hand of fate, 
As ripen'd ears the harvest-sickle wait. 

He would not allow a speech of this kind to avail 
at all to the cure of our grief, for he said it was a 
lamentable case itself, that we were fallen into the 
hands of such a cruel fate ; for to preach up comfort 



OF CICERO. 155 

from the misfortunes of another, is a comfort only 
to those of a malevolent disposition. But to me 
it appears far otherwise : for the necessity of 
bearing what is the common condition of humanity, 
makes you submit to the gods, and informs you 
that you are a man, which reflection greatly alle- 
viates grief: and they do not produce these ex- 
amples to please those of a malevolent disposition, 
but that any one in affliction may be induced to 
bear what he observes many others bear with 
tranquillity and moderation. For they who are 
falling to pieces, and' cannot hold together through 
the greatness of their grief, should be supported.by 
all kinds of assistance. From whence Chrysippus 
thinks that grief is called a^v, as it were Xv<™, i. e. 
& dissolution of the whole man. The whole of 
which I think may be pulled up by the roots, by 
explaining, as I said at the beginning, the cause 
of grief; for it is nothing else but an opinion 
and estimation of a present acute evil. Thus any 
bodily pain, let it be ever so grievous, may be 
tolerable where any hopes are proposed of some 
considerable good ; and we receive such conso- 
lation from a virtuous and illustrious life, that they 
who lead such lives are seldom attacked by grief, 
or but slightly affected by it. 

XXVI. But if to the opinion of evil there be 
added this other, that we ought to lament, that it 
is right so to do, and part of our duty ; then is 



156 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

brought about that grievous disorder of mind. 
To which opinion we owe all those various and 
horrid kinds of lamentations, that neglect of our 
persons, that womanish tearing of our cheeks, that 
striking on our thighs, breasts, and heads. Thus 
Agamemnon, in Homer and in Accius, 

Tears in his grief his uncomb'd locks. 

From whence comes that pleasant saying of 
Bion, that the foolish king in his sorrow tore away 
the hairs of his head, imagining that being bald he 
would be less sensible of grief* But whoever acts 
thus is persuaded he ought to do so. And thus 
./Eschines accuses Demosthenes of sacrificing 
within seven days after the death of his daughter. 
But how rhetorically! how copiously! what sen- 
tences has he collected? what words doth he 
throw out ? You may see by this that an orator 
may do any thing, which nobody would have ap- 
proved of, but from a prevailing opinion, that every 
good man ought to lament heavily the loss of a 
relation. Hence it comes, that some, when in 
sorrow, betake themselves to deserts; as Homer 
saith of Bellerophon, 

Wide o'er the iElean field he chose to stray, 

A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way ! 

Woes heap'd on woes consum'd his wasted heart ; 

Pop. II. B. vi. 1. 247. 

and thus Niobe is feigned to have been turned 
into stone, from her never speaking, I suppose, in 



OF CICERO. 157 

her grief. But they imagine Hecuba to have 
been converted into a bitch, from her rage and 
bitterness of mind. There are others who love to 
converse with solitude itself, when in grief, as the 
nurse in Ennius, 

Fain would I to the heavens and earth relate 
Medea's ceaseless woes and cruel fate. 

XXVII. Now all these things are done in 
grief, from a persuasion of the truth, rectitude, 
and necessity of them ; and it is plain, that it 
proceeds from a conviction of its being their duty ; 
for should these mourners by chance drop their 
grief, and seem more calm or cheerful for a mo- 
ment, they presently check themselves and return 
to their lamentations again, and blame themselves 
for having been guilty of any intermissions from 
their grief. Parents and masters generally correct 
children not by words only, but by blows, if they 
show any levity when the family is under afflic- 
tion ; and, as it were, oblige them to be sorrowful. 
What? doth it not appear, when you cease of 
course to mourn, and perceive your grief has 
been ineffectual, that the whole was an act of 
your own choosing? What saith he, in Terence, 
who punishes himself, i. e. the Self-Tormentor, " I 
am persuaded I do less injury to my son by being 
miserable myself." He determines to be mise- 
rable ; and can any one determine on any thing 



158 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

against his will ? " I should think I deserved any 
misfortune." He should think he deserved any 
misfortune, were he otherwise than miserable. 
Therefore you see the evil is in opinion, not in 
nature. How is it, when some things prevent 
of themselves your grieving at them? as in 
Homer, so many died and were buried daily, 
that they had not leisure to grieve. Where you 
find these lines : 

The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall, 
And endless were the grief to weep for all. 
Eternal sorrows what avails to shed ? 
Greece honours not with solemn fasts the dead : 
Enough when death demands the brave to pay 
The tribute ^of a melancholy day. 
One chief with patience to the grave resign'd, 
Our care devolves on others left behind. 

Therefore it is in our own power to lay aside 
grief upon occasion ; and is there any occasion 
(seeing the thing is in our own power) that we 
should let slip in order to get rid of care and 
grief? It was plain, that Cn. Pompey's friends, 
when they saw him fainting under his wounds, 
though at that very time they were under great 
uneasiness how they themselves, surrounded by 
the enemy, might escape, were employed in 
nothing but encouraging the ^rowers and aiding 
their escape ; but when they reached Tyre, they 
began to grieve and lament over him. Therefore, 



OF CICEllO. 159 

as fear with them prevailed over grief, cannot 
reason and true philosophy have the same effect 
with a wise man ? 

XXVIII. But what is there more effectual to 
dispel grief than the discovery that it answers no 
purpose, and turns to no account? Therefore if 
we can get rid of it, we need never to have been 
subject to it. It must be acknowledged then 
that men take up grief wilfully and knowingly ; 
and this appears from the patience of those who, 
after they have been "exercised in afflictions and 
are better able to bear whatever befals them, sup- 
pose themselves hardened against fortune, as that 
person in Euripides : 

Had this the first essay of fortune been, 
And I no storms thro' all my life had seen, 
Wild as a colt I'd broke from reason's sway, 
But frequent griefs have taught me to obey. 

As then the frequent bearing of misery makes 
grief the lighter, we must necessarily perceive 
that the cause and original of it doth not lie in 
the thing itself. Your principal philosophers, or 
lovers of wisdom, though they have not yet ar- 
rived at it, are not they sensible that they are 
under the greatest evil ? For they are fools, and 
folly is the greatest of all evils; and yet they 
lament not. How shall we account for this ? 
Because that opinion is not fixed to that kind of 
evil : it is not our opinion that it is right, meet, 



160 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

and our duty, to be uneasy because we are not all 
wise men. Whereas this opinion is strongly 
affixed to that uneasiness where mourning is con- 
cerned, which is the greatest of all grief. There- 
fore Aristotle, when he blames some ancient phi- 
losophers for imagining that by their genius they 
had brought philosophy to the highest perfection, 
says, they must be either extremely foolish, or ex- 
tremely vain ; but that he himself could see that 
great improvements had been made therein in a 
few years, and that philosophy would in a little 
time arrive at perfection. Theophrastus is re- 
ported to have accused nature at his death for 
giving to stags and crows so long a life, which 
was of no use to them, and for giving so few days 
to men, where it would have been of the greatest 
use ; whose days, had they been lengthened, the 
life of man would have been provided with all 
kinds of learning, and with arts in the greatest 
perfection. He lamented therefore that he 
should die just as he had begun to discover 
these. What ? doth not every grave and dis- 
tinguished philosopher acknowledge himself 
ignorant of many things ? and that there are 
many things he must learn over and over again ? 
and yet, though these are sensible that they 
stick in the very midway of folly, than which 
nothing can be worse, are under no great afflic- 
tion, because the opinion that it is their duty 



OF CICERO. 16 1 

to lament never interferes. What shall we say of 
those who think it unbecoming in a man to 
grieve ? amongst whom we may reckon Q.-Maxi- 
mus, who buried his son that had been consul, 
and L. Paulus, who lost two sons within a few 
days of one another. Of the same opinion wasM. 
Cato, who lost his son just as he was designed for 
Praetor ; and many others, which I have collected 
in my book of Consolation. Now what made 
these so easy, but their persuasion that grief and 
lamentation was not becoming in a man ? There- 
fore, as some give themselves up to grief from an 
opinion that it is right so to do, they refrained 
themselves from an opinion that it was wrong : 
from whence we may infer, that grief is owing 
more to opinion than nature. 

XXiX. It may be said, on the other side, 
Who is so mad as to grieve voluntarily ? Pain 
proceeds from nature ; which you must submit to, 
agreeably to what even your own Crantor teaches, 
this presses and gains upon you unavoidably. So 
that the very same Oileus, in Sophocles, who had 
before comforted Telamon on the death of Ajax, 
on hearing of the death of his own son is broken- 
hearted. On this alteration of his mind we have 
these lines : 

Show me the man so well by wisdom taught 
That what he charges to another's fault, 
When like affliction doth himself betide, 
True to his own wise counsel will abide. 

M 



]6Q the tusculan disputations 

Now when they urge these, their endeavour is to 
evince, that nature is irresistible ; and yet the 
same people allow, that we take greater grief on 
ourselves than nature requires. What madness is 
it then in us to require the same from others ? 
But there are many reasons for taking grief on 
us. The first is from the opinion of some evil, on 
the discovery and persuasion of which, grief comes 
of course. Besides, many people are persuaded 
they do something very acceptable to the dead 
when they lament over them. To these may be 
added a kind of womanish superstition, in ima- 
gining that to acknowledge themselves afflicted 
and humbled by the gods, is the readiest way of 
appeasing them. 'But few see what contradictions 
these things are charged with. They commend 
those who die calmly, but they blame those who 
can bear the loss of another with the same calm- 
ness ; as if it were possible that it should be true, 
as lovers say, that any one can love another more 
than himself. There is indeed something excel- 
lent in this, and, if you examine it, no less just 
than true, that we should love those who ought to 
be dear to us, as well as we love ourselves ; but to 
love them more than ourselves is impossible ; nor 
is it desirable in friendship that I should love my 
friend more than myself, or he me: this would 
occasion much confusion in life, and break in upon 
all the duties of it. 



OF CICERO. If) 3 

XXX. But of this elsewhere : at present it is 
sufficient not to lay our misery to the loss of our 
friends, nor to love them more than, were they sen- 
sible, they would approve of, or at least more than 
we do ourselves. Now as to what they say, that 
some are not all eased by our consolations ; and 
moreover add, that the comforters themselves ac- 
knowledge they are miserable when fortune varies 
the attack and falls on them, — in both these cases 
the solution is easy : for the fault here is not in 
nature, but our own folly, and much may be said 
against folly. But not to admit of consolation 
seems to bespeak their own misery ; and they 
who cannot bear their misfortunes with that tem- 
per they recommend to others, they are but on a 
footing with the covetous, who find fault with 
those that are so ; as do the vain-glorious with 
those of the same turn with themselves. For it is 
the peculiar characteristic of folly to discover the 
vices of others, forgetting its own. But since we 
find that grief is removed by length of time, we 
have the greatest proof that the strength of it de- 
pends not merely on time, but the daily considera- 
tion of it. For if the cause continues the same, 
and the man be the same, how can there be any 
alteration in the grief, if there is no change in what 
occasioned the grief, nor in him who grieves ? There- 
fore it is from daily reflecting that it is no evil for 



164 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

which you grieve, and not from the length of 
time, that you have the cure of grief. 

XXXI. Here some talk of moderate grief, 
which, supposing it natural, what occasion is there 
for consolation ? for nature herself will determine 
the measure of it ; but if it is in opinion, the whole 
opinion may be destroyed. I think it has been 
sufficiently said, that grief arises from an opinion 
of some present evil which includes this, that it is 
incumbent on us to grieve. To this definition Zeno 
has added very justly, that the opinion of this pre- 
sent evil should be recent. Now this word recent 
is explained thus ; not that alone is recent which 
happened a little while ago, but, as long as there 
shall be any force or vigour or freshness in that 
imagined evil, so long it is entitled to the name of 
recent. As Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus king 
of Caria, who made that noble sepulchre at Halicar- 
nassus ; whilst she lived she lived in grief, and died 
of that, being worn' out by it, so that that opinion 
was always recent with her : but you cannot call 
that so, which in time decays. Now the duty of a 
comforter is, to remove grief entirely, to quiet it, or 
draw it off as much as you can, to keep it under, 
and prevent its spreading, or to divert it. There are 
some who think with Cleanthes, that the only duty 
of a comforter is to prove, that it is by no means any 
evil. Others, as the Peripatetics, that the evil is 



OF CICERO. 165 

not great. Others, with Epicurus, lead you off 
from the evil to good : some think it sufficient to 
show, that nothing has happened but what you 
had reason to expect. But Chrysippus thinks the 
main thing in comforting is, to remove the opinion 
from the person who is grieving, that to grieve is 
his bounden duty. There are others who bring 
together all these various kinds of consolations, for 
people are differently affected ; as I have done my- 
self in my book of Consolation : for my own mind 
being much disordered, I have given in that every 
method of cure. But the proper season is as much 
to be watched in the cure of the mind, as of the 
body ; as Prometheus in iEschylus, on its being 
said to him, 

I think> Prometheus, you this tenet hold, 
That all men's reason should their rage control ; 

answers, 

Yes, when one reason properly applies ; 
Ill-tim'd advice will make the storm but rise. 

XXXII. But the principal medicine to be ap- 
plied in consolation, is to maintain either that it is 
no evil at all, or a very inconsiderable one : next 
to that is, to speak to the common condition of 
life, and with a view, if possible, to the istate of 
the person whom you comfort particularly. The 
third is, that it is folly to wear oneself out with 
grief which can avail nothing. For the advice of 
Cleanthes is for a wise man who wants none ; for 



166 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

could you persuade one in grief, that nothing is 
an evil but what is base, you would not only cure 
him of grief, but folly. But the time for such 
doctrine is not well chosen. Besides, Cleanthes 
doth not seem to me sufficiently apprised, that 
affliction may very often proceed from that very 
thing which he himself allows to be the greatest 
misfortune. As was the case with Alcibiades, 
whom Socrates convinced, as we are told, that 
there was no difference betwixt him, though a 
man of the first fashion, and a porter. Alcibiades, 
being uneasy at this, entreated Socrates with tears 
in his eyes, to make him a man of virtue, and dis- 
miss that baseness. What shall we say to this, 
Cleanthes ? Was there no evil in what afflicted 
Alcibiades thus ? What strange things doth Lycon 
say? who, to assuage grief, makes it arise from 
trifles, from things that affect our fortune or bodies, 
not from the evils of the mind. What, then, did not 
the grief of Alcibiades proceed from the vices and 
evils of the mind ? I have already said enough of 
Epicurus's consolation. 

XXXIII. Nor is that consolation much to be 
relied on, though frequently practised, and some- 
times having effect, viz. That you are not alone 
in this. It has its effect, as I said, but not always, 
nor with every person ; for some reject it, but 
much depends on the application of it ; for you 
are to set forth, not how men in general have been 



OF CICERO. 167 

affected with evils, but how men of sense have 
borne them. As to Chrysippus's method, it is cer- 
tainly founded in truth ; but it is difficult to apply 
it in time of distress. It is a work of no small 
difficulty to persuade a person in affliction that 
he grieves, merely because he thinks it right so to 
do. Certainly then, as in pleadings we do not 
state all cases alike, but adjust them to the time, to 
the nature of the subject under debate, and the 
person ; thus in assuaging grief, regard should be 
had to what kind of cure the party will admit of. 
But, I know not how, we have rambled from what 
you proposed. For your question was concerning a 
wise man, with whom nothing can have the appear- 
ance of evil, that is not dishonourable : or at least 
would seem so small an evil, that by his wisdom he 
so over-matches it, that it quite disappears ; who 
makes no addition to his grief through opinion : 
who never conceives it right to torment himself 
above measure, and wear himself out with grief, 
which is the meanest thing imaginable. Reason, 
however, it seems, has evinced, though it was not 
directly our subject at present, that nothing can 
be called an evil but what is base ; and, by the 
way, we may discover, that all the evil of affliction 
has nothing natural in it, but is contracted by our 
own voluntary judgment of it, and the error of 
opinion. Therefore I have treated of that kind of 
affliction, which is the greatest ; the removing of 



168 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

which has made it of little consequence to look 
after remedies for the others. 

XXXIV. There are certain things usually 
said on poverty ; others on a retired and undistin- 
guished life. There are particular treatises on 
banishment, on the ruin of one's country, on 
slavery, on weakness, or blindness, and on every 
incident that can come under the name of an evil. 
The Greeks divide these into different treatises 
and distinct books : but they do it for the sake -of 
employment : not but that disputations are full of 
entertainment ; and yet, as physicians, in curing 
the whole body, help the least part that is affected^ 
so philosophy, after it has removed grief in gene- 
ral, if any other deficiency exist ; should poverty 
bite, should ignominy sting, should banishment 
bring a dark cloud over us, or should any of those 
things I just mentioned appear, it applies to each 
its particular consolation : which you shall hear 
whenever you please. But we must have recourse 
to the same fountain, that a wise man is free from 
all evil, because it is insignificant, because it an- 
swers no purpose, because it is not founded in 
nature, but opinion and prejudice, but a kind of 
courting grief, when once they have imagined that 
it is their duty to do so. Subtracting then what 
is altogether voluntary, that mournful uneasiness 
will be removed ; yet some little anxiety, some 
small remorse will remain. They may indeed call 



OF CICERO. 169 

this natural, provided they give it not that horrid, 
solemn, melancholy name of grief, which can by 
no means consist with wisdom. But how various,, 
and how bitter, are the roots of grief! Whatever 
they are, I propose, after having felled the trunk, 
to destroy them all ; and if you approve of it, by 
particular dissertations, for I have leisure enough, 
whatever time it may take up. But it is the same 
with all uneasiness, though it appears under dif- 
ferent names. For envy is an uneasiness ; so are 
emulation, detraction, anguish, sorrow, sadness, 
tribulation, lamentation, vexation, grief, trouble, 
affliction, and despair. The Stoics define all 
these, and all those words I mentioned belong to 
different things, and do not, as they seem, express 
the same things ; but they are distinct, as I shall 
make appear perhaps in another place. These are 
those fibres of the roots, which, as I said at first, 
must be cut off, and destroyed, that not one 
should remain. You say it is a great and difficult 
undertaking ; who denies it ? But what is there 
of any excellency which has not its difficulty? 
Yet philosophy undertakes to effect it, provided 
we accept of the cure. But so much for this : 
the others, whenever you please, shall be ready for 
you here, or any where else. 

THE END OF THE THIRD BOOK. 



THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS. 



BOOK IV. 



ON OTHER PERTURBATIONS OF THE MIND. 

I have been apt to wonder, Brutus, on many 
occasions, at the ingenuity and virtues of our 
countrymen ; but nothing has surprised me more 
than those studies, which, though they came some- 
what late to us, have been transported into this 
city from Greece. For the auspices, religious 
ceremonies, courts of justice, appeals to the people, 
the senate, the establishment of horse and foot, 
and the whole military discipline, were instituted 
as early as the foundation of the city by royal au- 
thority, partly too by laws, not without the as- 
sistance of the gods. Then with what a surpris- 
ing and incredible progress did they advance 
towards all kind of excellence, when once the 
Republic was freed from the regal power? Not 
that I propose to treat here of the manners 
and customs of our ancestors, the discipline and 
constitution of the city ; for I have elsewhere, 
particularly in the six books I wrote on the 



THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS. .171 

Republic, given a very accurate account of them. 
But whilst I am on this subject, and considering 
the study of philosophy, I meet with many reasons 
to imagine that those studies were brought to us 
from abroad, and not merely imported, but pre- 
served and improved ; for they had Pythagoras, a 
man of consummate wisdom, in a manner, before 
their eyes; who was in Italy at the time L. 
Brutus, the illustrious founder of your nobility, 
delivered his country from tyranny. As the 
doctrine of Pythagoras spread itself on all sides, 
it seems probable to me, that it reached this city : 
and this is not only probable, but appears to have 
been the case from many remains of it. For 
who can imagine, that, when it flourished so much 
in that part of Italy which was called Greece, 
in some of the largest and most powerful cities, 
in which, first, the name of Pythagoras, and then 
theirs, who were afterwards his followers, was in 
so high esteem ; who can imagine, I say, that our 
people could shut their ears to what was said by 
such learned men ? Besides, my opinion is, that 
the great esteem the Pythagoreans were held in, 
gave rise to that ppinion amongst our ancestors, 
that king Numa was a Pythagorean. For, being 
acquainted with the discipline and institutes of 
Pythagoras, and having heard from their ances- 
tors, that the king was a very wise and just man, 
and not being able to distinguish times that were 



1 72 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

so remote, they inferred, from his being so emi- 
nent for his wisdom, that he was a hearer of Py- 
thagoras. 

II. So far we proceed on conjecture. As to 
the vestiges of the Pythagoreans, though I might 
collect many, I shall use but a few ; because that 
is not our present purpose. Now, as it is reported 
to have been a custom with them to deliver certain 
abstruse precepts in verse, and to bring their 
minds from severe thought to a more composed 
state by songs and musical instruments ; so Cato, 
a very serious author, saith in his Origins, that it 
was customary with our ancestors for the guests 
at their entertainments, every one in his turn, to 
sing the praises and virtues of illustrious men to 
the sound of the flute : from whence it is clear that 
poems and songs were then composed for the 
voice. Still, that poetry was in fashion appears 
from the laws of the twelve tables, wherein it is 
provided, that none should be made to the injury 
of another. Another argument of the erudition 
of those times is, that they played on instruments 
before the feasts held in honour of their Gods, and 
the entertainments of their magistrates : now that 
was peculiar to the sect I am speaking of. To me, 
indeed, that poem of Appius Caecus, which Panae- 
tius commends so much in a certain letter to Q. 
Tubero, has all the marks of a Pythagorean. We 
have many things derived from them in our cus- 



OF CICERO. 173 

toms : which I pass over, that we may not seem to 
have learned that elsewhere which we look on 
ourselves as the inventors of. But to return to 
our purpose. How many great poets as well as 
orators have sprung up among us ! and in what a 
short time ! so that it is evident, that our people 
could attain any thing as soon as they had an in- 
clination for it. But of other studies I shall speak 
elsewhere if there is occasion, as I have already 
often done. 

III. The study of philosophy is certainly of 
long standing with us ; but yet I do not find that 
I can give you the names of any before the age of 
Laelius and Scipio : in whose younger days we find 
that Diogenes the Stoic, and Carneades the 
Academic, were sent embassadors by the Athe- 
nians to our senate. As these had never been 
concerned in public affairs, and one of them was a 
Cyrenean, the other a Babylonian, they had cer- 
tainly never been forced from their studies, nor 
chosen for that employ, unless the study of philo- 
sophy had been in vogue with some of the great 
men at that time : who, though they might employ 
their pens on other subjects ; some on civil law, 
others on oratory, others on the history of former 
times, yet promoted this most extensive of all arts, 
the discipline of living well, more by their life than 
by their writings. So that of that true and elegant 
philosophy, (which was derived from Socrates, and 



174 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

is still preserved by the Peripatetics, and by the 
Stoics, though they express themselves differently 
in their disputes with the Academics) there are 
few or no Latin monuments ; whether this pro- 
ceeds from the importance of the thing itself, or 
from men's being otherwise employed, or from 
their concluding that the capacity of the people 
was not equal to the apprehension of them. But, 
during this silence, C. Amafinius arose and took 
upon himself to speak ; on the publishing of whose 
writings the people were moved, and enlisted 
themselves chiefly under this sect, either because 
the doctrine was more easily understood, or that 
they were invited thereto by the pleasing thoughts 
of amusement, or that, because there was nothing 
better, they laid hold of what was offered them. 
And after Amafinius, when many of the same sen- 
timents had written much about them, the Pytha- 
goreans spread over all Italy : but that these 
doctrines should be so easily understood and 
approved of by the unlearned, is a great proof 
that they were not written with any great subtlety, 
and they think their establishment to be owing to 
this. 

IV. But let every one defend his own opinion, 
they are at liberty to choose what they like : I 
shall keep to my old custom ; and being under no 
restraint from the laws of any particular school, 
which in philosophy every one must necessarily 



OF CICERO. 175 

confine himself to, I shall always inquire after what 
has the most probability in every question, which, 
as I have often practised on other occasions, I have 
kept close to in my Tusculan Disputations. There- 
fore, as I have acquainted you with the disputations 
of the three former days, this book concludes the 
fourth. When we had come down into the aca- 
demy, as we had done the former days, the 
business was carried on thus. M. Let any one 
say, who pleases, what he would have disputed. A. 
I do not think a wise man can possibly be free 
from every perturbation of mind. M. He seemed 
by yesterday's discourse to be so from grief : unless 
you allowed it only not to take up time. A. Not 
at all on that account, for I was extremely satisfied 
with your discourse. M. You do not think then 
that a wise man is subject to grief? A. No, by no 
means. M. But if that cannot disorder the mind 
of a wise man, nothing else can. For what ? can 
it be disturbed by fear ? Fear proceeds from the 
same things when absent, which occasion grief 
when present. Take away grief then, and you 
remove fear. 

V. The two remaining perturbations are, a 
joy elate above measure, and lust : which, if a wise 
man is not subject to, his mind will be always at 
rest. A. I am entirely of that opinion. M. Had 
you rather, then, that I should immediately crowd 
all my sails ? or shall I make use of my oars, as if I 



176 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS. 

were just endeavouring to get clear of the harbour? 
A. I do not apprehend what you mean by that. 
M. Why, Chrysippus and the Stoics, when they 
dispute on the perturbations of the mind, make 
great part of their debate to consist in dividing 
and distinguishing : they employ but few words 
on the subject of curing the mind, and preventing 
it from being disordered. Whereas the Peripate- 
tics bring a great many things to promote the 
cure of it, but have no regard to their thorny 
partitions and definitions. My question then was, 
whether I should instantly unfold the sails of my 
discourse, or make my way out with the oars of 
the logicians ? A. Let it be so : for by means of 
both these, the subject of our enquiry will be 
more thoroughly discussed. M. It is certainly 
the better way : and should any thing be too ob- 
scure, you may inform yourself afterwards. A. 
I will do so ; but those very obscure things, you 
will, as usual, deliver with more clearness than the 
Greeks. A. I will indeed endeavour to do so: but 
it requires great attention, for should you lose one 
word, the whole will escape you. What the 
Greeks call waftj, we choose to name perturbations 
(or disorders) rather than diseases, in explain- 
ing which, I shall follow, first, that very old 
description of Pythagoras, then Plato's ; who 
divide the mind into two parts ; they make one of 
these to- partake of reason, the other to be without 



OF CICERO. 177 

it. In that which partakes of reason they place 
tranquillity, i. e. a placid and undisturbed con- 
stancy : to the other they assign the turbid mo- 
tions of anger and desire, which are contrary and 
opposite to reason. Let this then be our principle, 
the spring of all our reasonings. But notwith- 
standing, I shall use the partitions and definitions 
of the Stoics in describing these perturbations : 
who seem to me to have been very subtle on this 
question. 

VI. Zeno's definition, then, is thus : that a 
perturbation, which he calls a ^^ is a commo- 
tion of the mind repugnant to reason, and against 
nature. Some of them define it shorter ; that a 
perturbation is a more vehement appetite ; but by 
more vehement they mean an appetite that re- 
cedes further from the constancy of nature. But 
they would have the distinct parts of perturbations 
to arise from two imagined goods, and from two 
imagined evils : and thus they become four : from 
the good proceed lust and joy : as joy for some 
present good, lust from future. They suppose fear 
and grief to proceed from evils : fear from some- 
thing future, grief from something present: for 
whatever things are dreaded as approaching, al- 
ways occasion grief when present. But joy and lust 
depend on the opinion of good; as lust is inflamed 
and provoked, and ■ carried eagerly to what has 
the appearance of good; joy is transported and 

N 



17& THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

exults on obtaining what was desired. For we 
naturally pursue those things that have the ap- 
pearance of good ; and fly the contrary. Where- 
fore, as soon as any thing that has the appearance 
of good presents itself, nature incites us to the 
obtaining it. Now, where this is consistent and 
founded on prudence, this strong desire is by the 
Stoics called jSo^c-^, but we name it a volition ; 
and this they allow to none but their wise man, 
and define it thus. Volition is a reasonable desire, 
but whatever is incited too violently in opposition 
to reason, that is a lust, or an unbridled desire ; 
which is discoverable in all fools. And with re- 
spect to good, we are likewise moved two ways ; 
there is a placid and calm motion, consistent with 
reason, called joy: and there is likewise a vain, 
wanton exultation, or immoderate joy, Icetitia 
gestiens, or transport, which they define to be an 
elation of the mind without reason. And as we 
naturally desire good things, so in like manner we 
naturally avoid evil ; the avoiding of which, if 
warranted by reason, is called caution; and this 
the wise man alone is supposed to have : but that 
caution which is not under the guidance of reason, 
but is attended with a base and low dejection, is 
called fear. Fear is therefore an unreasonable 
caution. A wise man is not affected by any 
present evil : but the grief of a fool proceeds 
from being affected with an imaginary evil, on 



OF CICERO. 179 

which their minds are contracted and sunk, as 
they revolt from reason. This, then, is the first 
definition, which makes grief to consist in the 
mind's shrinking contrary to the dictates of rea- 
son. Thus there are four perturbations, and but 
three opposites, for grief has no opposite. 

VII. But they would have all perturbations 
depend on opinion and judgment; therefore they 
define them more closely ; not only the better to 
show how blameable they are, but to discover how 
much they are in our power. Grief then is a recent 
opinion of some evil, in which it seems to be right, 
that the mind should shrink and be dejected. Joy, 
a recent opinion of a present good, in which it 
seems to be right that the mind should be trans- 
ported. Fear, an opinion of an impending evil, 
which we apprehend as intolerable. Lust, an 
opinion of a good to come, which would be of 
advantage were it already come, and present with 
us. But however I have named the judgments 
and opinions of perturbations, their meaning is 
not that merely the perturbations consist in them; 
but the effects likewise of these perturbations: 
as grief occasions a kind of painful remorse ; 
fear, a recoil or sudden escape of the mind ; joy, 
a profuse mirth, lust, an unbridled habit of 
coveting. But that imagination, which I have 
included in all the above definitions, they would 
have to consist in assenting without warrantable 



180 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

grounds. Now every perturbation has many 
parts annexed to it of the same kind. Grief is 
attended with enviousness (I use that word for 
instruction sake, though it is not so common; 
because envy takes in not only the person who 
envies, but the person too who is envied). Emu- 
lation, detraction, pity, vexation, mourning, sad- 
ness, tribulation, sorrow, lamentation, solicitude, 
disquiet of mind, pain, despair, and whatever else, 
is of this kind. Fear includes sloth, shame, terror, 
cowardice, fainting, confusion, astonishment. In 
pleasure they comprehend a malevolence that is 
pleased at another's misfortune, a delight, boast- 
ing, and the like. To lust they associate anger, 
fury, hatred, enmity, discord, wants, desire, and 
the rest of that kind. 

VIII. But they define these in this manner. 
Envying, they say, is a grief arising from the 
prosperous circumstances of another, which are 
no ways detrimental to the person who envies : for 
where anyone grieves at the prosperity of another, 
by which he is injured, such a one is not properly 
said to envy ; as when Agamemnon grieves at 
Hector's success : but where any one, who is no 
ways hurt by the prosperity of another, is in pain 
at his success, such an one envies indeed. Now 
that emulation is taken in a double sense, so that 
the same word may stand for praise and dispraise : 
for the imitation of virtue is called emulation; but 



OF CICERO. l&h 

that sense of it I shall have no occasion for here ; 
for that carries praise with it. Emulation is also 
grief at another's enjoying what I desired to have^ 
and am without. Detraction, (and I mean by that 
jealousy,) is a grief even at another's enjoying what 
I had a great inclination for. Pity is a grief at the 
misery of another, who suffers wrongfully : no one 
grieves at the punishment of a parricide, or of a be- # 
trayer of his country. Vexation is a pressing grief. 
Mourning is a grief at the bitter death of one who 
was dear to you. Sadness is a grief attended with 
tears. Tribulation is a painful grief. Sorrow, 
an excruciating grief. Lamentation, a grief 
where we loudly bewail ourselves. Solicitude, a 
pensive grief. Trouble, a continued grief. Afflic- 
tion, a grief that harasses the body. Despair, a 
grief that excludes all hope of better things to 
come. What is included under fear, they define 
to be sloth, which is a dread of some ensuing 
labour : shame and terror, that affects the body ; 
hence blushing attends shame; a paleness and 
tremor, and chattering of the teeth, terror : cow- 
ardice, an apprehension of some approaching 
evil ; dread, a fear that unhinges the mind, 
whence comes that of Ennius, 

Then dread discharg'd all wisdom from my mind : 

Fainting is the associate and constant attendant 
on dread : confusion, a fear that drives away all 
thought ; astonishment, a continued fear. 



182 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

IX. The parts they assign to pleasure come 
under this description, that malevolence is a plea- 
sure in the misfortunes of another without any 
advantage to yourself: delight, a pleasure that 
soothes the mind by agreeable impressions on the 
ear. What is said of the ear, may be applied to 
the sight, to the touch, smell, and taste. All of 
this kind are a sort of melting pleasures that dis- 
solve the mind. Boasting is a pleasure that con- 
sists in making an appearance, and setting off 
yourself with insolence. What comes under lust 
they define in this manner. Anger is a lust of 
punishing any one we imagine has injured us 
without cause. Heat is anger just forming and 
beginning to exist, which the Greeks call &tJ/*»<n$. 
Hatred is a settled anger. Enmity is anger 
waiting for an opportunity of revenge. Discord 
is a sharper anger conceived deep in the mind and 
heart. Want, an insatiable lust. Desire, is when 
one eagerly wishes to see a person who is absent. 
Now here they have a distinction : desire is a lust 
conceived on hearing of certain things reported of 
some one, or of many, which the Greeks call pre- 
dicated ; as that they are in possession of riches 
and honours : but want is a lust for those very 
honours and riches. But they make intemperance 
the fountain of all these perturbations : which is 
an absolute revolt from the mind and right reason : 
a state so averse to all prescriptions of reason, that 



OF CICERO, 183 

the appetites of the mind are by no means to be 
governed and restrained. As therefore tempe- 
rance appeases these desires, making them obey 
right reason, and maintains the well-weighed 
judgments of the mind; so intemperance, which 
is in opposition to this, inflames, confounds, and 
puts every state of the mind into a violent 
motion. Thus grief and fear, and every other 
perturbation of the mind, have their rise from 
intemperance. 

X. Just as distempers and sickness are bred 
in the body from the corruption of the blood, and 
the too great abundance of phlegm and bile; so 
the mind is deprived of its health, and disordered 
with sickness, from a confusion of depraved 
opinions, that are in opposition to one another. 
From these perturbations arise, first, diseases, 
which they call vo^^ra ; in opposition to these 
are certain faulty distastes or loathings ; then 
sicknesses, which are called a^o-r^aTa by the 
Stoics ; and these two have their opposite aversions. 
Here the Stoics, especially Chrysippus, give them- 
selves unnecessary trouble to show the analogy 
the diseases of the mind have with those of the 
body: but, overlooking all that they say as of 
little consequence, I shall treat only of the thing 
itself. Let us then understand perturbation to 
imply a restlessness from the variety and confu- 
sion of contradictory opinions ; and that when this 



184 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

heat and disturbance of the mind is of any stand- 
ing, and has taken up its residence, as it were, in 
the veins and marrow, then commence diseases 
and sickness, and those aversions which are in op- 
position to them. 

XL What I say here may be distinguished in 
thought, though they are in fact the same ; and 
have their rise from lust and joy. For should 
money be the object of our desire, and should 
we not instantly apply to reason, Socrates' medi- 
cine to heal this desire, the evil slides into our 
veins, and cleaves to our bowels, and from thence 
proceeds a distemper or sickness, which, when of 
any continuance, is incurable. The name of this 
disease is covetousness. It is the same with other 
diseases ; as the desire of glory, a passion for 
women, if I may so call tfwXoywwa; and thus all 
other diseases and sicknesses are generated. 
Now, the contrary of these are supposed to have 
fear for their foundation, as a hatred of women, 
such as is the Woman-hater of Atilius : or the 
hating the whole human species, as Timon is re- 
ported to have done, whom they called the Misan- 
thrope. Of the same kind is inhospitality. All 
which diseases proceed from a certain dread of 
such things as they hate and avoid. But they 
define sickness of mind to be an overweening 
opinion, and that fixed and settled, of something 
as very desirable, which is by no means so. What 



OF CICERO. 185 

proceeds from aversion, they define thus : a vehe- 
ment conceit of something to be avoided, when 
there is no reason for avoiding it ; and thus a 
fixed and settled conceit. Now this conceit is a 
persuasion that you know what you are ignorant 
of. But this sickness is attended with something 
like these ; covetousness, ambition, a passion for 
women, wilfulness, gluttony, drunkenness, luxury, 
conceit, and the like. For covetousness is a 
vehement imagination of money, which strongly 
possesses you that it is a very desirable thing : 
and in like manner they define other things of the 
same kind. The definitions of aversions are after 
this sort-; inhospitality is a vehement opinion, 
with which you are strongly possessed, that you 
should avoid a stranger. Thus too the hatred 
of women, like Hippolitus's, is defined, and the 
hatred of the human species, like Timon's. 

XII. But to come to the analogy of the state 
of body and mind, which I shall sometimes make 
use of, though more sparingly than the Stoics : as 
some are more inclined to particular disorders 
than others. Thus we say, that some are rheuma- 
tic, others dropsical, not because they are so at 
present, but because they are often so : some are 
more inclined to fear, others to some other pertur- 
bation. Thus in some there is an anxiety, whence 
they are anxious ; in some a hastiness of temper, 
which differs from anger, as anxiety differs from 



186 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

anguish : for all are not anxious who are some- 
times vexed ; nor are they who are anxious 
always uneasy in that manner : as there is a 
difference betwixt being drunk, and drunkenness ; 
and it is one thing to be a lover, another to be 
given to women. And this disposition of some to 
particular disorders, is very extensive : for it 
relates to all perturbations ; it appears in many 
vices, though it has no name : some are therefore 
said to be envious, malevolent, spiteful, fearful, 
pitiful, from a propensity to those perturbations, 
not from their being always carried away by 
them. Now this propensity to these particular 
disorders may be called a sickness, from analogy 
with the body ; that is, nothing more than a pro- 
pensity towards sickness. But with regard to 
whatever is good, as some are more inclined to 
different goods than others, we may call this a 
facility or tendency : this tendency to evil is a pro- 
clivity or inclination to falling: but where any 
thing is neither good, nor bad, it may have the 
former name. 

XIII. Even as there may be, with respect 
to the body, a disease, a sickness, and a defect ; so 
it is with the mind. They call that a disease 
where the whole body is corrupted: sickness, 
where a disease is attended with a weakness : 
a defect, where the parts of the body are not well 
compacted together ; from whence it follows, that 



OF CICERO. 1 87 

the members are mis-shaped, crooked, and de- 
formed. So that these two, a disease and sickness, 
proceed from a violent concussion and perturba- 
tion of the health of the whole body ; but a 
defect discovers itself, even when the body is 
in perfect health. But a disease of the mind is 
distinguishable only in thought from a sickness. 
A viciousness is a habit or affection discordant and 
inconsistent throughout life. Thus it happens, 
that a disease and sickness may arise from one 
kind of corruption of opinions ; from another in- 
constancy and inconsistency. For every vice of 
the mind doth not imply a disunion of parts ; as 
is the case with those who are not far from wise 
men : with them there is that affection which 
is inconsistent with itself whilst it is witless, but 
it is not distorted, nor depraved. But diseases 
and sicknesses are parts of viciousness : but it is 
a question whether perturbations are parts of the 
same : for vices are permanent affections : pertur- 
bations are affections that are restless ; so that 
they cannot be parts of permanent affections. 
As there is some analogy between the nature of 
the body and mind in evil, so in good: for the 
distinctions of the body are beauty, strength, 
health, firmness, quickness of motion; the same 
may be said of the mind. The body is said to 
be in a good state, when all those things on 
which health depends, are consistent : the same 



188 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

may; be said of the mind, when its judgments and 
opinions are not at variance. And this union 
l is the virtue of the mind : which, according to 
some, is temperance itself ; others make it consist 
in an obedience to the precepts of temperance, 
and a complying with them, not allowing it to 
be any distinct species of itself : but be it one or 
the other, it is to be found only in a wise man. 
But there is a certain soundness of mind, which a 
fool may have, when the perturbation of his mind 
is removed by the care and management of his 
physicians. And, as what is called beauty arises 
from an exact proportion of the limbs, together 
with a sweetness of complexion, so the beauty of 
the mind consists in an equality and constancy of 
opinions and judgments, joined to a certain firm- 
ness and stability, pursuing virtue, or containing 
within itself the very essence of virtue. Besides, 
we give the very same names to the faculties of 
the mind, as we do to the powers of the body, the 
nerves, and other powers of action. Thus the 
velocity of the body is called swiftness : a praise 
we entitle the mind to, from its running over 
in its thoughts so many things in so short a time. 

XIV. Herein indeed the mind and body are un- 
like : that though the mind when in perfect health 
may be visited by sickness, as the body may, yet the 
body may be disordered without our fault, the 
mind cannot. For all the disorders and pertur- 



OF CICERO. 189 

bations of the mind proceed from a neglect of 
reason ; these disorders therefore are confined to 
men; the beasts are not subject to perturbations, 
though they act sometimes as if they had reason. 
There is a difference too, betwixt ingenious and 
dull men ; the ingenious, like the Corinthian brass, 
which is long before it receives rust, are longer 
before they fall into these perturbations, and are 
recovered sooner: the case is different with the 
dull. Nor doth the mind of an ingenious man fall 
into every kind of perturbation, never into any that 
are brutish and savage : some of their perturba- 
tions have the appearance of humanity, as mercy, 
grief, and fear. The sicknesses and diseases of the 
mind are thought to be harder to pluck up, 
than those leading vices which are in opposition 
to virtues : for vices may be removed, though the 
diseases of the mind should continue, which dis- 
eases are not cured with that expedition vices are 
removed. I have now acquainted you with what 
the Stoics dispute with such exactness : which 
they call logic, from their close arguing ; and 
since my discourse has got clear of these rocks, I 
will proceed with the remainder of it, provided I 
have been sufficiently clear in what I have already 
said, considering the obscurity of the subject I 
have treated. A. Clear enough ; but should there 
be occasion for a more exact enquiry, I shall take 
another opportunity : I expect you to hoist your 



]$0 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

sail, as you just now called it, and proceed on 
your course. 

XV. M. Since I have before said of virtue in 
other places, and shall often have occasion to say 
(for a great many questions that relate to life and 
manners arise from the spring of virtue) ; since, 
I say, virtue consists in a settled and uniform 
affection of mind, bringing praise to those who are 
possessed of her ; she herself, independent of any 
thing else, without regard to any advantage, must 
be praiseworthy ; for from her proceed good in- 
clinations, opinions, actions, and the whole of right 
reason ; though virtue may be defined in few 
words to be right reason itself. The opposite to 
this is viciousness, (for so I choose to define what 
the Greeks call **Y.iav, rather than perverseness ; 
for perverseness is the name of a particular vice ; 
but viciousness includes all) from whence arise 
those perturbations, which, as I just now said, 
are turbid and violent motions of the mind, re^ 
pugnant to reason, and enemies in a high degree 
to the peace of the mind, and a tranquil life : for 
they introduce piercing cares, afflicting and de- 
bilitating the mind through fear ; they violently in- 
flame our appetites ; occasioning that impotence 
of mind, utterly different from temperance and 
moderation, which I sometimes call desire, some- 
times lust, which, should it attain its desires, be- 
comes so elate, that it loses all its resolution, and 
knows not what to pursue ; so that he was in the 



OF CICERO. 191 

right who said, " that too great a joy was founded 
on a great mistake." Virtue then alone can effect 
the cure of these evils. 

XVI. For what is not only more miserable, 
but more base and sordid, than a man afflicted, 
weakened, and oppressed with grief ? Little short 
of this misery is one who dreads some approaching 
evil, and who, through faintheartedness, is under 
continual suspense. The poets, to express the 
greatness of this evil, imagine a stone to hang 
over the head of Tantalus, for his wickedness, his 
pride, and his boasting. Folly is punished gene- 
rally in the same way ; for there hangs over the 
head of every one who revolts from reason some- 
thing of this kind, either grief or fear. And as 
these perturbations of the mind, grief and fear, are 
of a poisonous nature ; so those two others, though 
of a more merry cast (I mean lust, which is 
always coveting, and empty mirth, which is an 
exulting joy,) differ very little from madness. 
Hence you may understand what I mean by call- 
ing a man sometimes moderate, then modest or 
temperate, at another time constant and virtuous ; 
sometimes I would include all these names in the 
word frugality, as the crown of all. For if that 
word did not include all virtues, it would never 
have been proverbial to say, that a frugal man 
doth every thing right ; which, when the Stoics 
apply to their wise man, they seem to exalt him 



192 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

too much, and to speak of him with too much 
admiration. 

XVII. Whoever then, through moderation 
and constancy, is at rest in his mind, and in calm 
possession of himself, so as neither to pine with 
care, nor be dejected with fear, neither to be in- 
flamed with desire, nor dissolved by extravagant 
joy, such a one is the very wise man we enquire 
after, the happy man : to whom nothing in this 
life seems so intolerable as to depress him ; no- 
thing so exquisite as to transport him. For 
what is there in this life that can appear great to 
him, who has acquainted himself with eternity, 
and the utmost extent of the universe ? For What 
is there in human knowledge, or the short span of 
this life, that can appear great to a wise man ? 
whose mind is always so upon its guard, that 
nothing can befal him unforeseen, nothing unex- 
pected, nothing new. Such a one takes so exact 
a survey on all sides of him, that he always knows 
how to dispose of himself, without anxiety, or any 
care about this world, and entertains every acci- 
dent that befals him with a becoming calmness. 
Whoever conducts himself in this manner, will be 
void of grief, and every other perturbation : and a 
mind free from these renders men completely 
happy : whereas a mind disordered and drawn off 
from right and unerring reason, loses at once, not 
only its resolution, but its health. Therefore the 



OF CICERO. 193 

thoughts and declarations of the Peripatetics are 
soft and effeminate, for they say that the mind 
must necessarily be agitated, but confine it within 
a certain d gree. And do you set bounds to vice ? 
What ! is not every disobedience to reason a vice ? 
doth not reason sufficiently declare, that there is 
no real good which you should too ardently desire, 
or the possession of which should transport you : or 
any evil that should dispirit you, or, that the 
suspicion of it should distract you ? and that all 
these things assume too melancholy, or too cheer- 
ful an appearance through our own error ? But if 
fools find this error lessened by time, so that, 
though the cause remains the same, they are not 
in the same manner, after some time, as they 
were at first affected ; a wise man ought not to be 
influenced at all by it. But what are those de- 
grees we are to limit it by ? Let us fix these 
degrees in .grief, a subject much canvassed. Faii- 
nius writes that P. Rutilius took it much to heart, 
that his brother was refused the consulate : but he 
seems to have been too much affected by it ; for it 
was the occasion of his death : he ought therefore 
to have borne it with more moderation. But let 
us suppose, that whilst he bore this with modera- 
tion, the death of his children had intervened ; 
here would have started a fresh grief, which, ad- 
mitting it to be moderate in itself, yet still it 
would be a great addition to the other. Now to 



194 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

these let us add some acute pains of body, the loss 
of his fortunes, blindness, banishment ; supposing 
then each misfortune to occasion an additional 
grief, the whole would be insupportable. 

XVIII. The man who attempts to set bounds to 
vice, acts like one who should throw himself head- 
long from Leucate, persuaded he could stop himself 
whenever he pleased. Now, as that is impossible, 
so a perturbed and disordered mind cannot refrain 
itself, and stop where it pleases. Certainly what- 
ever is bad in its increase, is bad in its birth : now 
grief, and all other perturbations, are doubtless 
baneful in their progress, and have therefore no 
small share of infection at the beginning ; for they 
go on of themselves when once they depart from 
reason, for every weakness is self-indulgent, and 
indiscreetly launches out, and doth not know 
where to stop. Wherefore the difference is small 
betwixt approving of moderate perturbations of 
mind, and moderate injustice, moderate cowardice, 
moderate intemperance. For whoever prescribes 
bounds to vice, admits of a part of it, which, as it 
is odious of itself, becomes the more so as it stands 
on slippery ground, and being once set forward, 
slides headlong, and cannot by any means be 
stopped. 

XIX. But what if the Peripatetics, whilst we 
say that these perturbations should be extirpated, 
not only say they are natural, but that they were 



OF CICERO. 195 

given by nature to a good purpose. They usually 
talk in this manner. In the first place, they say 
much in praise of anger ; they call it the whet- 
stone of courage, and they say that angry men 
exert themselves most against an enemy or bad 
citizen : that those reasons are of little weight 
which depend on reflection, such as, It is a 
just war, it becomes us to fight for our laws, our 
liberties, our country ; they will allow no force in 
these, unless our courage is warmed by anger. 
Nor do they confine their argument to warriors : 
but their opinion is, that no one can issue any 
rigid commands without some mixture of anger. 
In short, they have no notion, even of an orator 
either accusing or defending, without being spur- 
red on by anger. And though it should not be 
real, they think his words and gesture must carry 
the appearance of it, that the action of the orator 
may excite this passion in his hearer. And they 
deny that any man was ever seen, who doth not 
know what it is to be angry : and they name what 
we call lenity, by the bad appellation of indolence : 
nor do they commend only this lust (for anger is, 
as I defined it above, the lust of revenge), but they 
maintain that kind of lust or desire to be given us 
by nature for very good purposes : that no one 
can execute any thing well but what he is in 
earnest about. Themistocles used to walk in the 
public places in the night, because he could not 



\96 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

sleep : and when asked the reason, his answer was> 
that Miltiades' trophies kept him awake. Who 
has not heard how Demosthenes used to watch ? 
who said it gave him pain, if any mechanic was up 
in a morning at his work before him. Lastly, 
that some of the greatest philosophers had never 
made that progress in their studies, but from an 
ardent desire. We are informed that Pythagoras, 
Democritus, and Plato, visited the remotest parts 
of the world ; they thought that they ought to go 
wherever any thing was to be learned. Now it is 
not conceivable that these things could be effected 
but by the greatest ardour of mind. 

XX. They say that even grief, which we de- 
scribe as a monstrous fierce beast, and to be avoided 
as such, was appointed by nature, not without 
some good purpose : that men should lament when 
they had committed a fault, well knowing they 
had exposed themselves to correction, rebuke, and 
ignominy. For they think those who can bear 
ignominy and infamy without pain, are at liberty 
to commit what crimes they please : for with 
them, reproach is a stronger check than conscience. 
From whence we have that in Afranius, borrowed 
from common life; for when the abandoned son 
saith, Wretched that I am ! the severe father 
replies, 

Let him but grieve, no matter what the cause. 
And they say the other diseases of the mind have 



OF CICERO. J 97 

their use ; pity incites us to the assistance of others, 
and to alleviate the calamities of men, who unde- 
servedly fall into them: that even envy and 
defamation are not without their use ; as when you 
see one attain what you cannot, or observe another 
on a footing with yourself: that, should you take 
away fear, you would supplant all diligence in 
life ; which those use most who are afraid of the 
laws and the magistrates, who dread poverty, 
ignominy, death, and pain. But when they argue 
thus, they allow of their being retrenched, though 
they deny that they either can, or should be 
plucked up by the roots : so that their opinion is, 
that mediocrity is best in every thing. When they 
reason in this manner, what think you ? do they 
say something or nothing ? A. To me they say 
something ; I wait therefore to hear what you will 
say to them. 

XXI. M. Perhaps I may find something: 
but this first ; do you take notice with what mo- 
desty the Academics behave themselves ? for they 
speak plainly to the purpose. The Peripatetics 
are answered by the Stoics ; they have my leave 
to fight it out ; who think myself no otherwise 
concerned than to enquire after probabilities. The 
business is, then, if we can meet with any thing 
in this question that touches on the probable, 
beyond which human nature cannot proceed. 
The definition of a perturbation, as Zeno, I think, 



198 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

has rightly determined it, is thus : That a pertur- 
bation is a commotion of the mind against nature, 
in opposition to right reason ; or shorter thus, 
that a perturbation is a more vehement appetite ; 
that is called more vehement which is at a greater 
distance from the constant course of nature. 
What can I say to these definitions ? the most 
part of them we have from those who dispute 
with sagacity'and acuteness : some indeed, such 
as the ' ardours of the mind/ and c the whetstones 
of virtue/ savour of the pomp of rhetoricians. As 
to the question, if a brave man can maintain 
his courage without becoming angry ; it may 
be questioned with regard to the gladiators : 
though we observe much resolution even in them ; 
they meet,converse, they agree about terms, so that 
they seem rather placid than angry. But let us 
admit some Placideianus of that trade, to be 
in such a mind, as Lucilius relates of him, 

If for his blood you thirst, the task be mine ; 
His laurels at my feet he shall resign ; 
Not but I know, before I reach his heart, 
First on myself a wound he will impart. 
I hate the man ; enrag'd I fight, and strait 
In action we had been, but that I wait 
Till each his sword had fitted to his hand, 
My rage I scarce can keep within command. 

XXII. But we see Ajax in Homer advancing 
to meet Hector in battle cheerfully, without any 
of this boisterous wrath, who had no sooner 



of cicero. ]gg 

taken up his arms, but the first step he made 
inspired his associates with joy, his enemies with 
fear : that even Hector, as he is represented by 
Homer, trembling condemned himself for having 
challenged him to fight. Yet these conversed 
together, calmly and quietly, before they engaged ; 
nor did they show any anger, or outrageous be- 
haviour during the combat. Nor do I imagine 
that Torquatus, the first who obtained this sur- 
name, was in a rage, when he plundered the Gaul 
of his collar : or that Marcellus' courage at Clas- 
tidium was owing to his anger. I could almost 
swear, that Africanus, whom we are better ac- 
quainted with, from the freshness of his memory, 
was no ways inflamed by anger, when he covered 
Alienus Pelignus with his shield, and drove his 
sword into the enemy's breast. There may be 
some doubt of L. Brutus, if, through infinite 
hatred of the tyrant, he might not attack Aruns 
with more rashness, for I observed they mutually 
killed each other in close fight. Why then do 
you call in the assistance of anger ? would cou- 
rage, should it not begin to madden, lose its 
energy ? What ? do you imagine Hercules, whom 
the very courage, which you would have to be 
anger, preferred to heaven, was angry when he 
engaged the Erymanthian boar, or the Nemean 
lion ? or was Theseus in a passion when he seized 
on the horns of the Marathonian bull ? Take care 



200 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS. 

how you make courage to depend in the least on 
rage ; when anger is altogether irrational, and 
that is not courage which is void of reason. 

XXIII. We ought to hold all things here in 
contempt ; death is to be looked on with indif- 
ference ; pains and labours as tolerable. When 
these are established on judgment and conviction' 
then will that stout and firm courage take place : 
unless you attribute to anger whatever is done 
with vehemence, alacrity, and spirit. To me 
indeed that very Scipio who was chief priest, that 
favourer of the saying of the Stoics, ' that no pri- 
vate man could be a wise man/ doth not seem to 
be angry with Tiberius Gracchus, even when 
he left the consul in a languishing condition, 
and, though a private man himself, commanded, 
with the authority of a consul, that all who 
meant well to the republic should follow him. I 
do not know whether I have done any thing in 
the republic that has the appearance of courage ; 
but if I have, I certainly did not do it in wrath. 
Doth any thing come nearer madness than anger ? 
which Ennius has well defined, the beginning 
of madness. The changing colour, the alteration 
of our voice, the look of our eyes, our manner of 
fetching our breath, the little command we have 
over our words and actions, how little do they 
partake of a sound mind ! What can make a 
worse appearance than Homer's Achilles, or Aga- 



OF CICERO. 201 

inemnon, during the quarrel. And as to Ajax, 
anger drove him into downright madness, and was 
the occasion of his death. Courage therefore 
doth not want the patronage of anger ; it is suffi- 
ciently provided, armed, and prepared of itself. 
We may as well say that drunkenness, or mad- 
ness, is of service to courage, because those who 
are mad or drunk do a great many things often 
with more vehemence. Ajax was always brave, 
but most so when in a passion : 

The greatest feat that Ajax e'er aehiev'd 
"Was, when his single arm the Greeks relieved. 
Quitting the field; urg'gl on by rising rage, 
Forc'd the declining troops again t'engage. 

XXIV. Shall we say then that madness has 
its use ? Examine the definitions of courage : you 
will find it doth not require the assistance of 
passion. Courage is, then, an affection of mind, 
that bears all things with subjection to the chief 
law ; or a firm maintenance of judgment in sup- 
porting or repelling every thing that has a formid- 
able appearance, or knowing what is formidable 
or otherwise, and by maintaining invariably such 
a sense of them, as to bear them, or despise them ; 
or, in fewer words according to Chrysippus : (for 
the above definition are Sphaerus's, one of the first 
ability in defining, as the Stoics think : but they 
are all pretty much alike, they give us only com- 
mon notions, some one way, and some another.) 



202 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

But what is Chrysippus's definition? Fortitude 
saith he, is the knowledge of all things that are 
Jbearable : or an affection of the mind, which bears 
and supports every thing in obedience to the chief 
law of reason, without fear. Now, though we 
should take the same liberty with these, as Car- 
neades used to do, I fear they will be the only 
philosophers : for which of these definitions doth 
not explain that obscure and intricate notion of 
courage which every man conceives within himself? 
which being thus explained, what can a warrior, 
a commander, or an orator, want more ? and no 
one can think but that they will behave them- 
selves courageously without anger. What ? do 
not even the Stoics, who maintain that all fools 
are mad, make the same inferences ? for, take away 
perturbations, especially a hastiness of temper, 
and they will appear to talk very absurdly. But 
what they assert is thus: they say that all fools 
are mad, as all dunghills stink; not that they 
always do so, but stir them, and you will perceive 
it. Thus a hot man is not always in a passion ; 
but provoke him, and you will see him run mad. 
Now, that very anger, which is of such service in 
war, what is its use at home with his wife, chil- 
dren, and family ? Is there, then, any thing that a 
perturbed mind can do better than that which is 
calm and steady ? or can any one be angry without 
a perturbation of mind ? Our people then were in 



OF CICERO. 203 

the right, who, as all vices depend on our morals, 
and nothing is worse than a testy disposition, 
called angry men alone morose. 

XXV. Anger is in no wise becoming in an 
orator ; it is not amiss to affect it. Do you ima- 
gine I am angry when I plead with unusual vehe- 
mence and sharpness ? What ? when I write out 
my speeches after all is over and past? Or do you 
think iEsopus was ever angry when he acted, or 
Aecius was so when he wrote ? They act indeed 
very well, but the orator better than the player, 
provided he be really an orator: but then they 
carry it on without passion, and with a composed 
mind. But what wantonness is it to commend lust ? 
You produce Themistocks and Demosthenes : to 
these you add Pythagoras, Democritus, and Plato. 
What, do you call studies lust ? Now, should 
these studies be of the most excellent turn, as 
those were which you mentioned, they ought how- 
ever to be composed and tranquil : and what 
kind of philosophers are they who commend grief, 
than which nothing is more detestable ? Afranius 
has said much to their purpose, 

Let him but grieve, no matter what the cause. 

But he spoke this of a debauched and dissolute 
youth : but we are inquiring after a constant and 
wise man. We may even allow a centurion, or 
standard-bearer, to be angry, or any others, whom, 
not to explain the mysteries of the rhetoricians, I 



&04 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

shall not mention here, for to touch the passions/ 
where reason cannot be come at, may have its 
use ; but my enquiry, as I often aver, is of a wise 
man. 

XXVI. But even envy, detraction, pity, 
have their use. Why should you pity rather than 
assist, if it is in your power ? Is it because you 
cannot be liberal without pity? We should not 
take cares on ourselves upon another's account ; 
but ease others of their grief if we can. But that 
detraction, or that vicious emulation, which re- 
sembles a rivalship, of what use is it ? Now 
envy implies being uneasy at another's good, and 
that because he enjoys it. How can it be right, 
that you should voluntarily grieve, rather than 
take the trouble of acquiring what you want to 
have ; for it is madness in the highest degree, to 
desire to be the only one that has it. But who 
can with correctness speak in praise of a medi- 
ocrity of evils ? Can any one in whom there is 
lust or desire, be otherwise than libidinous or de- 
sirous ? or not be angry, where any vexation is, 
not to be vexed? or where fear is, not to be fear- 
ful ? Do we look then on the libidinous, the angry, 
the anxious, and the timid man, as persons of wis- 
dom? of whose excellence I could speak very largely 
and copiously, but wish to be as short as possible. 
Thus, that wisdom is an acquaintance with all di- 
vine and human affairs, or a knowledge of the cause 



OF CICERO. 205 

of every thing. Hence it is, that it imitates what is 
divine, and holds ail human concerns as inferior to 
virtue. Did you then say that it was your opinion 
that such a man was as naturally liable to pertur- 
bation as the sea is exposed to winds ? What is 
there that can discompose such gravity and con- 
stancy? Any thing sudden or unforeseen ? How 
c an any thing of this kind befal one, to whom 
nothing is sudden that can happen to man ? Now, 
as to their saying that redundancies should be 
pared off, and only what is natural remain ; what, 
I pray you, can be natural, which may be too ex- 
uberant ? All these proceed from the roots of 
errors, which must be entirely plucked up and 
destroyed, not pared and lopt off. 

XXVII. But as I suspect that your enquiry 
is more with regard to yourself than the wise man, 
for you allow him to be free from all perturba- 
tions, and would willingly yourself be so too ; 
let us see what remedies may be applied by phi- 
losophy to the diseases of the mind. There is 
certainly some remedy ; nor has nature been so 
unkind to the human race, as to have discovered 
so many salutary things for the body, and 
none for the mind. She has even been kinder 
to the mind than the body ; inasmuch as 
you must seek abroad for the assistance the 
body requires ; the mind has all within itself. 
But by how much more excellent and divine 



206 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

the mind is, it requires the more diligence ; which, 
when it is well applied, it discovers what is best ; 
when neglected, is involved in many errors. I 
shall apply then all my discourse to you ; for 
though you appear to enquire about the wise man, 
your enquiry may possibly be about yourself. 
Various, then, are the cures of those perturbations 
which I have expounded; for every disorder is 
not to be appeased the same way ; — one medi- 
cine must be applied to one who mourns, another 
to the pitiful, another to the person who envies ; 
for there is this difference to be maintained in all 
the four perturbations ; we are to consider 
whether the cure is to be applied, as to a pertur- 
bation in general, that is, a contempt of reason, or 
vehement appetite : or whether it would be better 
directed to particular perturbations, as to fear, 
lust, and the rest : whether that is not to be much 
affected by that which occasioned the grief, or 
whether every kind of grief is not to be entirely 
set aside. As, should any one grieve that he is 
poor, the question is, would you maintain poverty 
to be no evil, or would you contend that a man 
ought not to grieve at any thing ? Certainly this 
is best ; for should you not convince him with 
regard to poverty, you must allow him to grieve : 
but if you remove grief by particular arguments, 
such as I used yesterday, the evil of poverty is in 
some manner removed. 



OF CICERO. 207 

XXVIII. But any perturbation of the mind 
of this sort may be, as it were, wiped away by 
this method of appeasing the mind : by show- 
ing that there is no good in what gave rise to joy 
and lust, nor any evil in what occasioned fear or 
grief. But certainly the most effectual cure is, 
by showing that all perturbations are of themselves 
vicious, and have nothing natural or necessary in 
them. As we see grief itself is easily softened, 
when we charge those who grieve with weak- 
ness, and an effeminate mind : or when we 
commend the gravity and constancy of those 
who bear calmly whatever befals them here, 
which indeed is generally the case with those who 
look on these as real evils, but yet think they 
should be borne with resignation. One imagines 
pleasure to be a good, another money ; and yet the 
one may be called off from intemperance, the other 
from covetousness. The other method and ad- 
dress, which, at the same time that it removes the 
false opinion, withdraws the disorder, has more 
subtilty in it : but it seldom succeeds, and is not 
applicable to vulgar minds, for there are some 
diseases which that medicine can by no means re- 
move. For, should any one be uneasy that he is 
without virtue, without courage, void of duty, or 
honesty : his anxiety proceeds from a real evil, and 
yet we must apply another method of cure to him ; 
and such a one as all the philosophers, however they 



208 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

may differ about other things, agree in. For they 
must necessarily consent to this, that commotion of 
the mind in opposition to right reason are vicious : 
that, even admitting those things not to be evils, 
which occasion fear or grief ; nor those good which 
provoke desire or joy, yet that very commotion 
itself is vicious : for we mean by the expressions 
magnanimous and brave, one who is resolute, se- 
date, grave, and superior to every thing in this 
life : but one who either grieves, fears, covets, or is 
transported with passion, cannot come under that 
denomination ; for these things are consistent only 
with those who look on the things of this world as 
an overmatch for their minds. 

XXIX. Wherefore, as I before said, the philo- 
sophers have all one method of cure ; that nothing 
is to be said- to that, whatever it is, that disturbs 
the mind, but concerning the perturbation itself. 
Thus, first, with regard to desire ; when the busi- 
ness is only to remove that, the enquiry is not to 
be, whether that be good or evil, which provokes 
lust ; but lust itself is to be removed : so that, 
whether honesty be the chief good, or pleasure, or 
whether it consists in both these together, or in the 
other three kinds of goods, yet, should there be. in 
any one too vehement an appetite of even virtue 
itself, the whole discourse should be directed to the 
deterring him from that vehemence. But human 
nature, when placed in a conspicuous view, gives 



OF CICERO. 209 

us every argument for appeasing the mind ; and to 
make this the more distinct, the laws and conditions 
of life should be explained in our discourse. There- 
fore it was not without reason, that Socrates is . 
reported, when Euripides acquainted him with his 
play, called Orestes, to have begged that the three 
first verses might be repeated : 

What tragic story men can mournful tell, 
Whate'er from fate or from the gods befel, 
That human nature can support 

But in order to persuade those to whom any mis- 
fortune has happened, that they can and ought to 
bear it, it is very useful to set before them others 
who have borne the like. Indeed, the method of 
appeasing grief was explained in my dispute of 
yesterday, and in my book of Consolation, which 
I wrote in the midst of my own grief, for I was 
not the wise man : and applied this, notwithstand- 
ing Chrysippus's advice to the contrary, who is 
against applying a medicine to the fresh swellings 
of the mind ; but I did it, and committed a vio- 
lence on nature, that the greatness of my grief 
might give way to the greatness of the medicine. 

XXX. But fear borders upon grief, of which 
I have already said enough : but I must say a 
little more on that. Now, as grief proceeds from 
what is present, so fear from future evil : so that 
some have said that fear is a certain part of grief: 
others have called fear the harbinger of trouble ; 



210 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

which, as it were, introduces the ensuing evil. 
Now the reasons that make what is present toler- 
able, make what is to come of little weight : for 
with regard to both, we should take care to do 
nothing low or grovelling, soft or effeminate, mean 
or abject. But notwithstanding we should speak 
of the inconstancy, imbecility, and levity of fear 
itself, yet it is of greater service to despise those 
very things we are afraid of. So that it fell out 
very well, whether it was by accident or design, 
that I disputed the first and second day on death 
and pain ; two things that are the most dreaded : 
now, if what I then said was approved of, we are 
in a great degree freed from fear. And thus far, 
on the opinion of evils. 

XXXI. Proceed we now to goods, i. e. joy 
and desire. To me, indeed, one thing alone seems 
to take in the cause of all that relates to the per- 
turbations of the mind ; that all perturbations are 
in our own power ; that they are taken up upon 
opinion; and are voluntary. This error then 
must be discharged ; this opinion removed : and, 
as with regard to imagined evils, we are to make 
them more tolerable, so with respect to goods, we 
are to lessen the violent effects of those things 
which are called great and joyous. But one thing 
is to be observed, that equally relates both to good 
and evil : that, should it be difficult to persuade 
any one, that none of those things which disturb 



. OF CICERO. 2 1 1 

the mind are to be looked on as good or evil, yet 
a different cure is to be applied to different mo- 
tions ; and the malevolent person is to be corrected 
by one way of reasoning, the lover by another, the 
anxious man by another, and the fearful by ano- 
ther : and it were easy for any one who pursues 
the best approved method of reasoning, with 
regard to good and evil, to maintain that no fool 
can be affected with joy, as he never can have any 
thing good. But, at present, my discourse pro- 
ceeds upon the common received notions. Let, 
then, honours, riches, pleasures, and the rest, be 
the very good things they are imagined ; yet a 
too elevated and exulting joy on the possessing 
them is unbecoming ; for, though it were allowable 
to laugh, a loud laugh would be indecent. Thus a 
mind enlarged by joy, is as blameable as a con- 
traction of it in grief: and longing is of equal 
levity with the joy of possessing ; and as those who 
are too dejected are said to be effeminate, so they 
who are too elate with joy, are properly called 
volatile : and as envy partakes of grief, so to be 
pleased with another's misfortune, of joy ; and 
both these are usually corrected, by showing the 
wildness and insensibility of them. And as it be- 
comes a man to be cautious, but it is unbecoming 
to be fearful ; so to be pleased is proper, but to be 
joyful improper. I have, that I might be the 
better understood, distinguished pleasure from 



Q 1 g THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

joy. T have already said above, that a contraction 
of the mind can never be right, but an elation 
may : for the joy of Hector in Naevius is one 
thing, 

'Tis joy indeed to hear my praises sung 

By you, who are the theme of honour's tongue. 

But that of the character in Trabea another. " The 
kind procuress, allured by my money, will observe 
my nod, will watch my desires, and study my 
will. If I but move the door with my little finger, 
instantly it flies open ; and if Chrysis should unex- 
pectedly discover me, she will run with joy to 
meet me, and throw herself into my arms." 

Now he will tell you how excellent he thinks 
this: 

Not even fortune herself is so fortunate. 

XXXII. Any one who attends the least to it 
will be convinced how unbecoming this joy is. 
And as they are very shameful, who are immode- 
rately delighted with the enjoyment of venereal 
pleasures ; so are they very scandalous, who lust 
vehemently after them. And all that which is 
commonly called love (and believe me I can find 
out no other name to call it by) is of such levity, 
that nothing, I think, is to be compared to it ; of 
which Csecilius ■ — 

I hold the man of every sense beriev'd, 
Who grants not love to be of gods the chief: 



OF CICERO. 2 1 3 

Whose mighty power whate'er is good effects, 
Who gives to each his beauty and defects : 
Hence health and sickness ; wit and folly hence, 
The God that love and hatred doth dispense! 

An excellent corrector of life this same poetry! 
which thinks that love, the promoter of debauchery 
and vanity, should have a place in the council of the 
gods. I am speaking of comedy : which could 
not subsist at all, but on our approving of these 
debaucheries. But what said that chief of the Ar- 
gonauts in tragedy ? 

My life I owe to honour less than love. 
What then ? this love of Medea, what a train of 
miseries did it occasion ! and yet the same woman 
has the assurance to say to her father, in another 
poet, that she had a husband 

Dearer by love than ever fathers were. 

XXXIII. But let us allow the poets to trifle : 
in whose fables we see Jupiter himself engaged in 
these debaucheries : apply we then to the masters 
of virtue, the philosophers who deny love to be 
any thing carnal ; and in this they differ from 
Epicurus, who, I think, is not much mistaken. For 
what is that love of friendship ? How comes it, that 
no one is in love with a deformed young man, or a 
handsome old one ? I am of opinion, that this love 
of men had its rise from the Gymnastics of the 
Greeks, where these kinds of loves are free and 
allowed of : therefore Ennius spoke well ; 



214 THE TUSCUL AN DISPUTATIONS 

The censure of this crime to those is due, 
Who naked bodies first expos'd to view : 

Now supposing them chaste, which I think is 
hardly possible; they are uneasy and distressed, 
and the more so, as they contain and refrain them- 
selves. But to pass over the love of women, where 
nature has allowed more liberty; who can mis- 
understand the poets in their rape of Ganymede, 
or not apprehend what Laius saith, and what he 
would be at, in Euripides ? Lastly, what the prin- 
cipal poets and the most learned have published 
of themselves in their poems and songs ? What 
doth Alcus, who was distinguished in his own re- 
public for his bravery, write on the love of young 
men ? and all Anacreon's poetry is on love. But 
Ibycus of Rhegium appears, from his writings, to 
have had this love stronger on him than all the 
rest. 

XXXIV. Now we see that the loves of these 
were libidinous. There have arisen some amongst 
us philosophers, (and Plato is at the head of them, 
whom Dicaearchus blames not without reason) who 
have countenanced love. The Stoics in truth 
say, not only that their wise man may be a lover, 
but they also define love itself to be an endeavour 
of making friendship from the appearance of beau- 
ty. Now, provided there is any one in the nature 
of things, without desire, without care, without 
a sigh ; such a one may be a lover : for he is free 



OF CICERO. 215 

from all lust : but I have nothing to say to him, 
as lust is my subject. But should there be any 
love, as there certainly is, which is but little short, 
if at all, of madness, such as his in the Leucadia : 

Should there be any god whose care I am : 

it is incumbent on all the gods to see that he en- 
joys his amorous pleasure. 

Wretch that I am ! 

Nothing truer, and he saith very well. 

What, are you sane, lamenting at this rate ? 

He seems even to his friends to be out of his 
senses ? then how tragical he becomes ! 

Thy aid, divine Apollo, I implore, 

And thine, dread ruler of the wat'ry store ! 

Oh ! all ye winds, assist me ! 

He thinks the whole world should be overturned 
to help his love : he excludes Venus alone as un- 
kind to him. ' Thy aid, O Venus, why should I 
invoke?' He thinks Venus too much employed 
in her own lust, to have regard to any thing else, 
as if he himself had not said, and committed these 
shameful things from lust. 

XXXV. Now the cure for one affected in this 
manner, is to show, how light, how contemptible, 
how very trifling he is in what he desires ; how he 
may turn his affections to another object, or 
accomplish his desires by some other means, or 
that he may entirely disregard it ; sometimes he is 
to be led away to things of another kind, to study, 



2 ] 6 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

business, or other different engagements and con- 
cerns : very often the cure is effected by change 
of place, as sick people, that have not recovered 
their strength. Some think an old love may be 
driven out by" a new one, as one nail drives out 
another : but he should be principally advised, 
what madness love is : for of all the perturba- 
tions of the mind, nothing is more vehement ; 
though, without charging it with rapes, debauche- 
ries, adultery, or even incest, the baseness of any 
of these being very blameable ; yet, I say, not to 
mention these, the very perturbation of the mind 
in love, is base of itself, for, to pass over all its 
mad tricks ; those very things which are looked on 
as indifferent, what weakness do they argue ? 
" Affronts, jealousies, jars, parleys, wars, then 
peace again. Now, for you to ask advice to love 
by, is all one as if you should ask advice to run 
mad by." Now is not this inconstancy and muta- 
bility of mind enough to deter one by its own de- 
formity ? We are to demonstrate, as was said of 
every perturbation, that it consists entirely in 
opinion and judgment, and is owing to ourselves. 
For if love were natural, all would be in love, and 
always so, and love the same object ; nor would 
one be deterred by shame ; another by reflection, 
another by satiety. 

XXXVI. Anger, too, when it disturbs the 
mind any time, leaves no room to doubt its being 



OF CICERO. 2 1 7 

madness : by the instigation of which, we see 
such contention as this between brothers. 

Where was there ever impudence like 'thine ? 
Who on thy malice ever could refine ? 

You know what follows : for abuses are thrown 
out by these brothers, with great bitterness, in 
every other verse ; so that you may easily know 
them for the sons of Atreus, of that Atreus who 
invented a new punishment for his brother : 

I, who his cruel heart to gall am bent, 
Some new, unheard-of torment must invent. 

Now what were these inventions ? Hear 
Thyestes. 

My impious brother fain would have me eat 
My children, and thus serves them up for meat. 

To what length now will not anger go ? even as-far 
as madness. Therefore we say properly enough, 
that angry men have given up their power, that is, 
they are out of the power of advice, reason, 
and understanding : for these ought to have 
power over the whole mind. Now you should 
put those out of the way, whom they endeavour 
to attack, till they have recollected themselves ; 
but what doth recollection here imply, but getting 
together the dispersed parts of their mind ? or 
they are to be begged and intreated, if they have 
the means of revenge, to defer it to another op- 
portunity, till their anger cools. But the expres- 
sion of cooling implies, certainly, that there was a 



218 THE TJJSCULAN DISPUTATIONS. 

heat raised there in opposition to reason : from 
whence that saying of Archytas is commended : 
who being somewhat provoked at his steward, 
* How would I have treated you/ saith he, ' if I 
had not been in a passion V 

XXXVII. Where then are they who say that 
anger has its use ? Can madness be of any use ? 
But still it is natural. Can any thing be natural 
that is against reason ? or how is it, if anger is 
natural, that one is more inclined to anger than 
another ? or how is it, that the lust of revenge 
should cease before it has revenged itself ? or that 
any one should repent of what he had done in a 
passion ? as we see Alexander could scarce keep 
his hands from himself, when he had killed his 
favourite Clytus: so great was his compunction! 
Now who, that is acquainted with these, can 
doubt but that this motion of the mind is altoge- 
ther in opinion and voluntary ? for who can doubt 
but that disorders of the mind, such as covetous- 
ness, a desire of glory, arise from a great estima- 
tion of those things, by which the mind is disor- 
dered ? from whence we may understand, that 
every perturbation is founded in opinion. And if 
boldness, i. e. a firm assurance of mind, is a kind 
of knowledge and serious opinion, not hastily 
taken up : then diffidence is a fear of an expected 
and impending evil : and if hope is an expectation 
of good, fear must of course be an expectation of 



OF CICERO. 219 

evil. Thus fear and other perturbations are evils. 
Therefore as constancy proceeds from knowledge, 
so perturbation from error. Now they who are 
said to be naturally inclined to anger, or pitiful, 
or envious, or any thing of this kind ; their minds 
are constitutionally, as it were, in bad health, yet 
they are curable, as is said of Socrates, when 
Zopyrus, who professed knowing the nature of 
every one from his person, had heaped a great 
many vices on him in a public assembly, he was 
laughed at by others, who could perceive no such 
vices in Socrates : but Socrates kept him in coun- 
tenance, by declaring that such vices were natural 
to him, but he had got the better of them by 
his reason. Therefore, as any one who has the ap- 
pearance of the best constitution, may yet be more 
inclined to some particular disorder, so different 
minds may be differently inclined to different 
diseases. But those who are said to be vicious, 
not by nature, but their own fault ; their vices 
proceed from wrong opinions of good and bad 
things, so that one is more prone than another, to 
different motions and perturbations. And so in 
the body, an inveterate disorder is harder to be 
got rid of, than a perturbation; and a fresh 
tumour in the eyes is sooner cured, than a de- 
fluxion of any continuance is removed. 

XXXVIII. But as the cause of perturbations 
is discovered, all which arise from the judgment or 



220 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

opinion, and volitions, I shall put an end to this 
discourse. But we ought to be assured, the ends 
of good and evil being discovered, as far as they 
are discoverable by man, that nothing can be 
desired of philosophy greater, or more useful, than 
what I have disputed of these four days. For to 
a contempt of death, and the few enabled to bear 
pain ; I have added the appeasing of grief, than 
which there is no greater evil to man. Though 
every perturbation of mind is grievous, and differs 
but little from madness : yet we are used to say 
of others, when they are under any perturbation, 
as of fear, joy, or desire, that they are moved and 
disturbed; but of those who give themselves up to 
grief, that they are miserable, afflicted, wretched, 
unhappy. So that it doth not seem to be by acci- 
dent, but with reason proposed by you, that I 
should dispute separately of grief, and of the other 
perturbations: for there lies the spring and head 
of all our miseries : but the cure of grief, and of 
other disorders, is one and the same, in that they 
are all voluntary, and founded on opinion; we 
take them on ourselves because it seems right so 
to do. Philosophy promises to pluck up this 
error, as the root of all our evils: let us surrender 
ourselves to be instructed by it, and suffer ourselves 
to be cured; for whilst these evils have possession 
of us, we not only cannot be happy, but cannot 
be right in our minds. We must either deny that 



OF CICERO. 221 

reason can effect any thing, while, on the other 
hand, nothing can be done right without reason; 
or, since philosophy depends on the deductions of 
reason, we must seek from her, if we would be 
good or happy, every help and assistance for 
living well and happily. 



THE END OF THE FOURTH BOOK. 



THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS. 



BOOK V. 



WHETHER VIRTUE ALONE BE SUFFICIENT FOR A 
HAPPY LIFE. 

This fifth day, Brutus, shall put an end to our 
Tusculan Disputations : on which day I disputed 
on your favourite subject. For I perceived from 
that accurate book you wrote me, as well as from 
your frequent conversation, that you are clearly 
of this opinion, that virtue is of itself sufficient 
for a happy life : and though it may be difficult to 
prove this, on account of the many various strokes 
of fortune, yet it is a truth of such a nature, that 
we should endeavour to facilitate the proof of it. 
For among all the topics of philosophy, there is 
none of more dignity or importance. As the first 
philosophers must have had some inducement, to 
neglect every thing for the search of the best 
state of life : surely, it was with the hopes of 
living happily, that they laid out so much care 
and pains on that study. Now, if virtue was dis- 
covered and carried to perfection by them ; and if 
virtue is a sufficient security for a happy life : who 



THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 223 

but must think the work of philosophising excel- 
lently established by them, and undertaken by 
me ? But if virtue, as subject to such various and 
uncertain accidents, is but the slave of fortune, 
and not of sufficient ability to support herself ; I 
am afraid we should seem rather to offer up our 
petitions to her, than endeavour to place our con- 
fidence in virtue for a happy life. Indeed, when 
I reflect on those troubles, with which I have 
been severely exercised by fortune, I begin to 
suspect this opinion ; and sometimes even to 
dread the weakness and frailty of human na- 
ture, for I am afraid lest as nature has given 
us infirm bodies, and has joined to these in- 
curable diseases, and intolerable pains ; she might 
also have given us minds participating of these 
bodily pains, and harassed with troubles and un- 
easinesses, peculiarly her own. But here I cor- 
rect myself, for forming my judgment of the 
force of virtue, more from the weakness of others, 
or mine own perhaps, than from virtue itself: for 
that (provided there is such a thing as virtue, and 
your uncle Brutus has removed all doubt of it) 
has every thing that can befal man in subjection 
to her ; and by disregarding them, is not at all 
concerned at human accidents : and being free 
from every imperfection, thinks nothing beyond 
herself can relate to her. But we, who increase 
every approaching evil by our fear, and every 
present one by our grief, choose rather to 



224 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

condemn the nature of things, than our own 
errors. 

II. But the amendment of this fault, and 
of all our other vices and offences, is to be sought 
for in philosophy : to whose protection as my own 
inclination and desire led me, from my earliest 
days, so, under my present misfortunes, I have 
recourse to the same port, from whence I set out, 
after having been tost by a violent tempest. O 
Philosophy, thou conductor of life ! thou disco- 
verer of virtue, and expeller of vices ! what had 
not only I myself been, but the whole life of man 
without you ? To you we owe the origin of cities ; 
you called together the dispersed race of men 
into social life ; you united them together, first, by 
placing them near one another, then by marriages, 
and lastly, by the communication of speech and 
languages. To you we owe the invention of 
laws; you instructed us in morals and discipline. 
To you I fly for assistance ; and as I formerly 
submitted to you in a great degree, so now I sur- 
render up myself entirely to you. For one day 
well spent, and agreeably to your precepts, is pre- 
ferable to an eternity of sin. Whose assistance 
then can be of more service to me than yours, 
which has bestowed on us tranquillity of life, and 
removed the fear of death ? But philosophy is so 
far from being praised, as she hath deserved of 
man, that she is wholly neglected by most, and ill 
spoken of by many. Can any speak ill of the 



OF CICERO. 225 

the parent of life, and dare to pollute himself thus 
•with parricide! and be so impiously ungrateful as 
to accuse her, whom he ought to reverence, had he 
been less acquainted with her? But this error, I 
imagine, and this darkness, has spread itself over 
the minds of ignorant men, from their not being 
able to look so far back, and from their not 
imagining that those by whom human life was 
first improved, were philosophers : for though we 
see philosophy to have been of long standing, yet 
the name must be acknowledged to be but 
modern. 

III. But indeed, who can dispute the antiquity 
of philosophy, either in fact or name ? which ac- 
quired this excellent name from the ancients, by 
the knowledge of the origin and causes of every 
thing, both divine and human. Thus those seven 
2<x/)o;, as they were held and called by the Greeks, 
and wise men by us : and thus Lycurgus many 
ages before, in whose time, before the building of 
this city, Homer is said to have been, as well as 
Ulysses and Nestor in the heroic ages, were all re- 
ported really to have been, as they were called, wise 
men ; nor would it have been said, that Atlas sup- 
ported the heavens, or that Prometheus was bound 
to Caucasus, nor would Cepheus, with his wife, 
his son-in-law, and his daughter, have been en- 
rolled among the constellations, but that their 
more than human knowledge of the heavenly 

Q 



W6 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

bodies had transferred their names into an erro- 
neous fable. From whence, all who were exer- 
cised an the contemplation of nature, were held 
to be, as well as called, wise men : and that 
name of theirs continued to the age of Pythagoras, 
who is reported to have gone to Phlius, as we find 
it in Ponticus Heraclides, a very learned man, 
and a hearer of Plato's, and to have discoursed 
very learnedly and copiously on certain subjects, 
with Leon, prince of the Phliasii. Leon, ad- 
miring his ingenuity and eloquence, asked him 
what art he particularly professed ; his answer 
was, that he was acquainted with no art, but that 
he was a philosopher. Leon, surprised at the 
novelty of the name, enquired what he meant by 
the name of philosopher, and in what they differed 
from other men: on which Pythagoras replied, 
" That the life of man seemed to him to resemble 
those games, which were kept with the greatest 
entertainment of sports, and the general concourse 
of all Greece. For as there were some, whose 
pursuit was glory, and the honour of a crown, for 
the performance of bodily exercises; so others 
were induced by the gain of buying and selling, 
and mere lucrative motives : but there was like- 
wise one sort of them, and they by far the best, 
whose aim was neither applause, nor profit, but 
who came merely as spectators through curiosity, 
to remark what was done, and to see in what 



OF CICERO. 227 

manner things were carried on there. Thus we 
come from another life and nature, unto this, as it 
were out of another city, to some much frequented 
mart : some slaves to glory, others to money : that 
there are some few, who, taking no account of any 
thing else, earnestly look into the nature of things : 
that these call themselves studious of wisdom, 
that is, philosophers ; and as there it is more repu- 
table to be a looker on, without making any ac- 
quisition, so in life, the contemplating on things, 
and acquainting yourself with them, greatly ex- 
ceeds every other pursuit of life." 

IV. Nor was Pythagoras the inventor only of 
the name, but he enlarged also the thing itself, 
and, when he came into Italy after this conversa- 
tion at Phlius, adorned that Greece, which is called 
Great Greece, both privately and publicly, with 
the most excellent institutes and arts; of whose 
discipline perhaps, I shall find another oppor- 
tunity to speak. But numbers and motions, the 
beginning and end of things, were the subjects of 
the ancient philosophy down to Socrates, who was 
a hearer of Archelaus, the disciple of Anaxagoras. 
These made diligent enquiry into the magnitude 
of the stars, their distances, courses, and all that 
relates to the heavens. But Socrates was the first 
who brought down philosophy from the heavens, 
placed it in cities, introduced it into families, and 
obliged it to examine into life and morals, good 



228 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

and evil. Whose several methods of disputing, 
together with the variety of his topics, and the 
greatness of his abilities, being immortalized by 
the memory and writings of Plato, gave rise to 
many sects of philosophers of different sentiments : 
of all which I have principally adhered to that, 
which, in my opinion, Socrates himself followed ; 
to conceal my own opinion, clear others from their 
errors, and to discover what has the most proba- 
bility in every question. A custom Carneades 
maintained with great copiousness and acuteness, 
and which I myself have often used on many 
occasions elsewhere, agreeable to which manner I 
disputed too in my Tusculum, and indeed I have 
sent you a book of the four former days' disputa- 
tions ; but the fifth day, when we had seated our- 
selves as before, what we were to dispute on was 
proposed thus : 

V. A I do not think virtue can possibly be 
sufficient to a happy life. M. But my Brutus 
thinks so, whose judgment, with submission, I 
greatly prefer to yours. A. I make no doubt of 
it; but your regard for him is not the business now, 
but what I said was my opinion : I wish you to 
dispute on that. M. What! do you deny that 
virtue can possibly be sufficient for a happy life ? 
A. It is what I entirely deny. M. What ! is not 
virtue sufficient to enable us to live as we ought, 
honestly, commendably, or, in fine, to live well ? 



OF CICERO. 229 

A. Certainly sufficient. M. Can you then help 
calling any one miserable, who lives ill ? or any 
one whom you allow to live well, will you deny 
to live happily? A. Why may I not? for a man 
may be 'upright in his life, honest, praiseworthy, 
and therefore live well, even in the midst of tor- 
ments, but a happy life doth not aspire after that. 
M. What then? is your happy life left on the 
outside of the prison, whilst constancy, gravity, 
wisdom, and the other virtues, are surrendered up 
to the executioner, and bear punishment and pain 
without reluctance? A. You must look out 
for something new, if you would do any good. 
These things have very little effect on me, not 
merely from their being common, but principally, 
because, like certain light wines,- that will not 
bear water, these arguments of the Stoics are 
pleasanter to taste than to swallow. As when the 
assemblage of virtue is committed to the rack, it 
raises so reverend a spectacle before our eyes, that 
happiness seems to hasten on, and not to suffer 
them to be deserted by her. But when you take 
your attention off from these fancies, to the truth, 
and the reality, what remains without disguise is, 
whether any one can be happy in torment. 
Wherefore let us examine that, and not be 
under any apprehensions, lest the virtues should 
expostulate and complain, that they are forsaken 
by happiness. For if prudence is connected with 



£30 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

every virtue, prudence itself discovers this, that all 
good men are not therefore happy ; and she recol- 
lects many things of M. Attilius, Q. Caepio, M. 
Aquilius : and prudence herself, if these represen- 
tations are more agreeable to you than the things 
themselves, pulls back happiness, when it is en- 
deavouring to throw itself into torments, and 
denies that it has any connection with pain and 
torture. 

VI. M. I can easily bear with your behaving 
in this manner, though it is not fair in you to 
prescribe to me, how you would have me to dis- 
pute : but I ask you if I effected any thing or 
nothing in the foregoing days ? A. Yes, something 
was done, some little matter indeed. M. But if 
that is the case,- this question is routed, and almost 
put an end to. A. How so? M. Because turbu- 
lent motions and violent agitations of the mind, 
raised and elated by a rash impulse, getting the 
better of reason, leave no room for a happy life. 
For who that fears either pain or death, the one of 
which is always present, the other always im- 
pending, can be otherwise than miserable? Now 
supposing the same person, which is often the 
case, to be afraid of poverty, ignominy, infamy, or 
weakness, or blindness; or lastly, which doth not 
befal particular men, but often the most powerful 
nations, slavery ; now can any one under the ap- 
prehensions of these be happy? What! if he not 



OF CICERO. 231 

only dreads as future, but actually feels and 
bears them at present ? Let us unite in the same 
person, banishment, mourning, the loss of chil- 
dren ; whoever is in the midst of this affliction is 
worn with sickness ; can he be otherwise than very 
miserable indeed ? What reason can there be, why 
a man should not rightly enough be called misera- 
ble, that we see inflamed and raging with lust, 
coveting every thing with an insatiable desire, and 
the more pleasures he receives from any thing, 
still thirsting the more violently after them ? And 
as to a man vainly elated, exulting with an empty 
joy, and boasting of himself without reason, is not 
he so much the more miserable, as he thinks him- 
self the happier ? Therefore, as these are misera- 
ble, so on the other hand they are happy, who are 
alarmed by no fears, wasted by no griefs, pro- 
voked by no lusts, melted by no languid pleasures 
that arise from vain and exulting joys. We look 
on the sea as calm when not the least breath of 
air disturbs its waves; so the placid and quiet state 
of the mind is discovered when unmoved by any 
perturbation. Now if there be any one who holds 
the power of fortune, and every thing human, every 
thing that can possibly befal any man, as tolera- 
ble, so as to be out of the reach of fear or anxiety : 
and should such a one covet nothing, and be 
lifted up by no vain joy of mind, what can, pre- 
vent his being happy ? and if these are the effects. 



232 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

of virtue, why cannot virtue itself make men 
happy ? 

VII. A. One of these is undeniable, that 
they who are under no apprehensions, no ways un- 
easy, who covet nothing, are lifted up by no vain 
joy, are happy : therefore I grant you that ; and 
the other I am not at liberty to dispute ; for it 
was proved by your former disputations that a 
wise man was free from every perturbation of 
mind. M. Doubtless, then, the dispute is over. 
A. Almost, I think, indeed. M. But yet, that 
is more usual with the mathematicians than philo- 
sophers. For the geometricians, when they teach 
any thing, if what they had before taught relates 
to their present subject, they take that for grant- 
ed, and already proved ; and explain only what 
they had not written on before. The philosophers, 
whatever subject they have in hand, get every 
thing together that relates to it ; notwithstanding 
they had disputed on it somewhere else. Were 
not that the case, why should the Stoics say so 
much on that question, whether virtue was abun- 
dantly sufficient to a happy life ? when it would 
have been answer enough, that they had before 
taught, that nothing was good but what was 
honest : this being proved, the consequence 
would be, that virtue was sufficient to a happy 
life : and, as follows from the other, so if a happy 
life consists in virtue, nothing can be good but 



OF CICERO. 233 

what is honest : but they do not act in this man- 
ner ; for they have distinct books of honesty, and 
the chief good ; for though it follows from 
the former, that virtue has power enough to make 
life happy, yet they treat the other distinctly ; for 
every thing, especially of so great consequence 
should be supported by arguments which belong 
to that alone. Have a care how you imagine 
philosophy to have uttered any thing more noble, 
or that she has promised any thing more fruitful 
or of greater consequence : for, good gods ! doth 
she not engage, that she will so accomplish him 
who submits to her laws, as to be always armed 
against fortune, and to have every assurance 
within himself of living well and happily ; that he 
shall, in one word, be for ever happy. But let us 
see what she will perform ? In the meanwhile 
I look upon it as a great thing, that she has pro- 
mised. For Xerxes, who was loaded with all the 
rewards and gifts of fortune, not satisfied with 
his armies of horse and foot, nor the multitude of 
his ships, nor his infinite treasure of gold, offered a 
reward to any one who could find out a new 
pleasure: which, when discovered, he was not 
satisfied with; nor can there ever be an end to 
lust. I wish we could engage any one, by a 
reward, to produce something the better to esta- 
blish us in this. 

: VIII. A. I wish so indeed : but I want a lit- 



/ 



234 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

tie information. For I allow, that in what you 
have stated, the one is the consequence of the 
other ; that as, if what is honest he the only good, 
it must follow, that a happy life is the effect of 
virtue : so that if a happy life consists in virtue^ 
nothing can he good but virtue. But your Brutus, 
on the authority of Aristo and Antiochus, doth 
not see this : for he thinks the case to be the 
same, even if there was any thing good besides 
virtue. M. What then ? do you imagine I shall 
dispute against Brutus? A, You may do what 
you please : for it is not for me to prescribe what 
you shall do. M. How these things agree to- 
gether shall be enquired somewhere else : for, I 
frequently disputed that with Antiochus, and 
lately with Aristo, when, as general, I lodged 
with him at Athens. For to me it seemed that no 
one could possibly be happy under any evil : but a 
wise man might be under evil, if there are any 
evils of body or fortune. These things were said, 
which Antiochus has inserted in his books in many 
places : that virtue itself was sufficient to make 
life happy, but not the happiest : and that many 
things are so called from the major part, though 
they do not include all, as strength, health, riches 
honour, and glory : which are determined by their 
kind, not their number : thus a happy life is so 
called from its being in a great degree so, though 
it should fall short in some point. To clear this 



OF CICERO. 235 

up, is not absolutely necessary at present, though 
it seems to be said without any g;reat consistency : 
for I do not apprehend what is wanting to one 
that is happy, to make him ha.ppier ? for if any 
thing be wanting, he cannot be so much as happy ; 
and as to what they say, that every thing is called 
and looked upon from the greater part, may be 
admitted in some things. Bi\t when they allow 
three kinds of evils ; when a ny one is oppressed 
with all the evils of two kinds, as with adverse 
fortune, and his body worn out and harassed 
with all sorts of pains> shall we say such a one is 
little short of a happy life, n ot to say, the hap- 
piest ? This is what Theophra* jtus could not main- 
tain : for when he had laid down, that stripes, 
torments, tortures, the ruin of one's country, 
banishment, the loss of child ren, had great in- 
fluence as to living miserably and unhappily, he 
durst not use any high and lofty expressions, 
when he was so low and abject in his opinion. 

IX. How right he was is nc >t the question ; he 
certainly was consistent. The refore I am not for 
objecting to consequences whe re the premises are 
allowed of. But this most ele£ ^ant and learned of 
all the philosophers, is not tak en to task when he 
asserts his three kinds of good ; but he is attacked 
by all for that book which he wrote on a happy 
life, in which book he has mai ly arguments, why 
one who is tortured and racke d cannot be happy. 



236 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

For in that he is supposed to say, that such a one 
cannot reach a complete happy life. He no 
where indeed saith so absolutely, but what he 
saith amounts to the same thing. Can I then find 
fault with him ; to whom I allowed, that pains of 
body are evils, that the ruin of a man's fortunes is 
an evil, if he should say that every good man is 
not happy, when all those things which he reckons 
as evils, may befal a good man ? The same Theo~ 
phrastus is found fault with by all the books and 
schools of the philosophers, for commending that 
sentence in his Callisthenes : 

Fortune, not wisdom, rules the life of man. 

They say, never did philosopher assert any thing 
so languid. They are right indeed in that: but 
I do not apprehend any thing could be more con- 
sistent : for if there are so many good things that 
depend on the body, so many foreign to it, that 
depend on chance and fortune, is it not consistent, 
that fortune, who governs every thing, both what 
is foreign and what belongs to the body, has 
greater power tha n counsel. Or would we rather 
imitate Epicurus ? ! who is often excellent in many 
things which he spieaks, but quite indifferent how 
consistent, or to the purpose. He commends 
spare diet, and in 1 ;hat he speaks as a philosopher ; 
but it is for Socrat m or Antisthenes to say so, not 
one who confines a ll good to pleasure. He denies 
that any one can live pleasantly, unless he lives 



OF CICERO. 257 

honestly, wisely, and justly. Nothing is more 
serious than this, nothing more becoming a philo- 
sopher, had he not applied this very thing, to live 
honestly, justly, and wisely, to pleasure. What 
better, than that fortune interferes but little with 
a wise man ? But doth he talk thus, who had said 
that pain is the greatest evil, or the only evil, and 
who might be afflicted with the sharpest pains all 
over his body, even at the time he is vaunting him- 
self the most against fortune ? Which very thing, 
too, Metrodorus has said, but in better language : 
' I have prevented you, Fortune ; I have caught 
you, and cut off every access, so that you cannot 
possibly reach me/ This would be excellent in 
the mouth of Aristo the Chian, or Zeno the 
Stoic, who held nothing to be an evil but what 
was base ; but for you, Metrodorus, to prevent 
the approaches of fortune, who confine all that is 
good to your bowels and marrow ; you, who 
define the chief good by a firm habit of body, and 
a well assured hope of its continuance, — for you 
to cut off every access of fortune ? Why, you may 
instantly be deprived of that good. Yet the sim- 
ple are taken with these, and from such sentences 
great is the crowd of their followers. 

X. But it is the duty of one who disputes ac- 
curately, to see not what is said, but what is said 
consistently. As in the opinion which is the subject 
of this disputation ; I maintain that every good 



238 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

man is always happy ; it is clear what I mean by 
good men : I call those both wise and good men, 
who are provided and adorned with every virtue. 
Let us see then who are to be called happy. * 
imagine, indeed, those, who are possessed of good 
without any allay of evil : nor is there any other 
notion connected with the word that expresses 
happiness, but an absolute enjoyment of good 
without any evil. Virtue cannot attain this, if 
there is any thing good besides itself: for a crowd 
of evils would present themselves, if we allow 
poverty, obscurity, humility, solitude, the loss 
of friemds, acute pains of the body, the loss of 
healthy weakness, blindness, the ruin of ones 
country, banishment, slavery, to be evils : for, to 
conclude, a wise man may be in all these and 
many others : for they are brought on by chance, 
which may attack a wise man ; but if these are 
evils, who can maintain a wise man to be always 
happy, when all these may light on him at the 
same time ? I therefore do not easily agree with 
my Brutus, nor our common masters, nor those 
ancient ones, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, 
Pokmon, who reckon all that I have mentioned 
above as evils, and yet they say that a wise man 
is always happy ; who, if they are charmed with 
this beautiful and illustrious title, which would 
very well become Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, 
they should be persuaded, that strength, health, 



OF CICERO. 239 

beauty, riches, honours, power, with the beauty of 
which they are ravished, are contemptible, and 
that all those things which are the opposites of 
these are not to be regarded. Then might they 
declare openly, with a loud voice, that neither the 
attacks of fortune, nor the opinion of the multi- 
tude, nor pain, nor poverty, occasion them any 
apprehensions ; and that they have every thing 
within themselves, and that they hold nothing to 
be good but what is within their own power. 
Nor can I by any means allow the same person, 
who falls into the vulgar opinion of good and 
evil, to make use of these expressions, which can 
only become a great and exalted man. Struck 
with which glory up starts Epicurus, who, with 
submission to the gods, thinks a wise man always 
happy. He is much taken with the dignity of 
this opinion, but he never would have owned that, 
had he attended to himself: for what is there 
more inconsistent, than for one who could say 
that pain was the greatest or the only evil, to 
think that a wise man should say in the midst of 
his torture, How sweet is this ! We are not there- 
fore to form our judgment of philosophers from 
detached sentences, but from their consistency 
with themselves, and their common manner of 
talking. 

XL A. You engage me to be of your opinion ; 
but have a care that you are not inconsistent 



240 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

yourself. M. By what means ? A. Because I 
have lately read your fourth book on Good and 
Evil : in that you appeared to me, when disputing 
against Cato, to have endeavoured to shew, which 
with me is to prove, that Zeno and the Peripate- 
tics differ only about some new words ; which 
allowed, what reason can there be, if it follows 
from the arguments of Zeno, that virtue contains 
all that is necessary to a happy life, that the Peri- 
patetics should not be at liberty to say the same ? 
For, in my opinion, regard should be had to the 
thing, not to words. M. What ? you would con- 
vict me from my own words, and bring against me 
what I had said or written elsewhere. You may 
act in that manner with those who dispute by es- 
tablished rules : we live from hand to mouth, and 
say any thing that strikes our mind with probabi- 
lity, so that we only are at liberty. But because 
I just now spoke of consistency, I do not think 
the enquiry in this place is, if Zeno's and his 
hearer Aristo's opinion be true, that nothing is 
good but what is honest ; but, admitting that, 
then, whether the whole of a happy life can be 
rested on virtue alone. Wherefore if we certainly 
grant Brutus this, that a wise man is always 
happy, how consistent he is, is his business : for 
who indeed is more worthy than himself of the glory 
of that opinion ? Still we may maintain that 
the same is most happy ; though Zeno of Citium, 



OF CICERO. 241 

a stranger and a mean coiner of words, has in- 
sinuated himself into the old philosophy. 

XII. Yet the prevalence of this opinion is due 
to the authority of Plato, who often makes use of 
this expression, " that nothing but virtue can he 
entitled to the name of good :" agreeably to what 
Socrates saith in Plato's Gorgias, when one asked 
him, if he did not think Archelaus the son of Per- 
diccas, who was then looked on as the most fortu- 
nate person, a very happy man: " I do not know," 
replied he, " for I never conversed with him. 
What, is there no other way you can know it by? 
None at all. You cannot then pronounce of the 
great king of the Persians, whether he is happy or 
not? How can I, when I do not know how, learned 
or how good a man he is ? What ! Do you look 
on a happy life to depend on that ? My opinion 
entirely is, that good men are happy, and the 
wicked miserable. Is Archelaus then miserable ? 
Certainly, if unjust." Now doth it not appear to 
you, that he placed the whole of a happy life in 
virtue alone ? But what doth the same say in his 
funeral oration? " For," saith he, " whoever has 
every thing that relates to a happy life so compact 
within himself, as not to be connected with the 
good or bad fortune of another, and not to 
depend on what befals another, or be under any 
uncertainty, such a one has acquired the best 
rule of living : this is that moderate, that brave, 



242 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

that wise man, who submits to the gain and loss of 
every thing, and especially of his children, and obeys 
that old precept ; so as never to be too joyful or 
too sad, because he depends entirely upon himself." 
XIII. From Plato therefore all my discourse 
shall be deduced, as it were, from some sacred and 
hallowed fountain. Whence can I then more 
properly begin, than from nature, the parent of 
all ? For whatsoever she produces, not only of the 
animal sort, but even of the vegetable, she de- 
signed it to be perfect in its respective kind. So 
that among trees, and vines, and those lower 
plants and trees, which cannot advance themselves 
higher from the earth, some are ever green, others 
are stripped of their leaves in winter ; and, warmed 
by the spring season, put them out afresh, and 
there are none of them but what are so quickened 
by a certain interior motion, and their own seeds 
inclosed in everyone so as to yield flowers, fruit, or 
berries, that all may have every perfection that 
belongs to it, provided no violence prevents it. 
But the force of nature itself may be more easily 
discovered in animals, as she has bestowed sense 
on them. For those animals that can swim she 
designed inhabitants of the water ; those that 
fly to expatiate in the air ; some creeping, some 
walking ; of these very animals some are soli- 
tary, some herding together; some wild, others 
tame, some hidden and covered by the earth ; 



OF CICERO. 243 

and every one of these maintains the law of 
nature, confining itself to what was bestowed on it, 
and unable to change its manner of life. And as 
every animal has from nature something that dis- 
tinguishes it, which every one maintains and never 
quits : so man has something far more excellent, 
though every thing is said to excel by comparison. 
But the human mind, as derived from the divine 
reason, can be compared with nothing but with 
the Deity itself, if I may be allowed the expression. 
This then, when improved, and its perception 
so preserved, as not to be blinded by errors, 
becomes a perfect understanding, that is, absolute 
reason : which is the very same as virtue. And if 
every thing is happy, which wants nothing, and is 
complete and perfect in its kind, "and that is the 
peculiar lot of virtue ; certainly all who are pos- 
sessed of virtue are happy. And in this I agree 
with Brutus, even with Aristotle, Xenocrates, 
Speusippus, Polemon. To me such only appear 
completely happy : for what can he want to a 
complete happy life, who relies on his own good 
qualities, or how can he be happy who doth not 
rely on them ? 

XIV. But he who makes a threefold division 
of goods, must necessarily be diffident, for how 
can he depend on having a sound body, or that his 
fortune shall continue ? but no one can be happy 
without an immovable, fixed, and permanent 



244 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

good. What then is this opinion of theirs ? So 
that I think that saying of the Spartan may be 
applied to them, who, on some merchant's boasting 
before him, that he could dispatch ships to every 
maritime coast ; replied, that a fortune which de- 
pended on ropes was not very desirable. Can there 
be any doubt that whatever may be lost, cannot be 
of the number of those things which complete a 
happy life ? for of all that constitutes a happy life, 
nothing will admit of growing old, of wearing out 
or decaying ; for whoever is apprehensive of any 
loss in these cannot be happy: the happy man 
should be safe, well fenced, well fortified, out of 
the reach of all annoyance ; not under trifling ap- 
prehensions, but void of all. As he is not called 
innocent who but slightly offends, but who offends 
not at all: so is he only to be held without fear, 
not who is in but little fear, but who is void of all 
fear. For what else is courage but an affection 
of mind, that is ready to undergo perils, as well as 
to bear pain and labour without any allay of fear? 
Now this certainly could not be the case, if any 
thing were good but what depended on honesty 
alone. But how can any one be in possession of 
that desirable and much requested security (for I 
now call a freedom from anxiety a security, on 
which freedom a happy life depends) who has, or 
may have, a multitude of evils attending him? 
;How can he be brave and undaunted, and hold 



OF CICERO. £45 

every thing as trifles which can befal a man, for so 
a wise man should do, but who thinks every thing 
depends on himself? Could the Lacedaemonians 
without this, when Philip threatened to prevent 
all their attempts, have asked him, if he could 
prevent their killing themselves ? Is it not easier 
then to find a man of such a spirit as we enquire 
after, than to meet with a whole city of such men ? 
Now, if to this courage I am speaking of, we add 
temperance, that governs all our commotions 
what can be wanting to complete his happiness 
who is secured by his courage from uneasiness 
and fear; and is prevented from immoderate 
desires, and immoderate insolence of joy, by tem- 
perance? I could show virtue able to effect these, 
but that I have explained on the foregoing days. 

XV. But as the perturbations of the mind 
make life miserable, and tranquillity renders it 
happy : and as these perturbations are of two 
sorts; grief and fear, proceeding from imagined 
evils, immoderate joy and lust, from the mistake 
of what is good ; and all these are in opposition to 
reason and counsel ; when you see a man at ease, 
quite free and disengaged from such troublesome 
commotions, which are so much at variance with 
one another, can you hesitate to pronounce such a 
one a happy man ? Now the wise man is always 
in such a disposition : therefore the wise man is 
always happy. Besides, every good is pleasant; 



246 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

whatever is pleasant may be boasted and talked 
of ; whatever is so, is glorious ; but whatever is glo- 
rious is certainly laudable, whatever is laudable 
doubtless, too, honest ; whatever then is good, is 
honest. But what they reckon good, they them- 
selves do not call honest : therefore what is honest 
alone is good. Hence it follows that a happy life 
is comprised in honesty alone. Such things then 
are not to be called or held for goods, amidst the 
abundance of which a man may be most miserable. 
Is there any doubt but that one who enjoys the 
best health, has strength, beauty, has his senses 
in their utmost quickness and perfection; suppose 
him likewise, if you please, nimble and alert, nay, 
give him riches, honours, authority, power, glory ; 
now, I say, should this person, who is in possession 
of all these, be unjust, intemperate, timid, stupid, 
or an ideot ; could you hesitate to call such a one 
miserable ? What then are those goods, in the pos- 
sessing which you may be very miserable ? Let us 
see then if a happy life is not made up of parts of 
the same nature, as a heap implies a quantity of 
grain of the same kind. Which admitted, happi- 
ness must be compounded of goods, which alone 
are honest ; if there is any mixture of things of 
another sort with these, nothing honest can pro- 
ceed from such a composition : now, take away 
honesty, how can you imagine any thing happy ? 
For whatever is good is desirable on that account : 



OF CICERO. . 5247 

whatever is desirable must certainly be approved 
of: whatever you approve of must be looked on 
as acceptable and welcome. You must conse- 
quently assign dignity to this ; and if so, it must 
necessarily be laudable ; therefore every thing 
that is laudable, is good. Hence it follows, that 
honesty is the only good. Should we not look 
on it in this light, we must call a great many 
things good. 

XVI. Not to mention riches, which, as any 
one, let him be ever so unworthy, may have them, 
I do not reckon amongst goods, for good is not at- 
tainable by all. I pass over notoriety, and po- 
pular fame, raised by the united voice of knaves 
and fools : even things which are absolute nothings, 
may be called goods ; as white teeth, handsome 
eyes, a good complexion, and what was commended 
by Euryclea when she was washing Ulysses's feet, 
the softness of his skin, and the mildness of his 
discourse. If you look on these as goods, what 
greater encomiums can the gravity of a philoso- 
pher be entitled to, than the wild opinion of the 
vulgar, and the thoughtless crowd? The Stoics 
give the name of excellent and choice to what the 
others call good : they call them so indeed : but 
they do not allow them to complete a happy life: 
but these think there is no life happy without them; 
or, admitting it to be happy, they deny it to be the 



248 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

most happy. But our opinion is, that it is the most 
happy : and we prove it from that conclusion of 
Socrates. For thus that author of philosophy 
argued : that as the disposition of a man's mind is, 
so is the man: such as the man is, such will be 
his discourse : his actions will correspond with his 
discourse, and his life with his actions. But the 
disposition of a good man's mind is laudable, the 
life therefore of a good man is laudable: it is 
honest therefore, because laudable; the inference 
from which is, that the life of good men is happy. 
For, good gods! did I not make it appear, by my 
former disputations, — or was I only amusing 
myself and killing time, in what I then said, — that 
the mind of a wise man was always free from 
every hasty motion, which I call a perturbation ? 
A temperate man then, constant, without fear or 
grief, without any immoderate joy or desire, 
cannot be otherwise than happy ; but a wise man 
is always so ; therefore always happy. Why then 
cannot a good man make every thing he thinks, or 
doth, regard what is laudable? For he has respect 
in every thing to living happily : a happy life then 
is laudable; but nothing is laudable without 
virtue; a happy life then is the effect of virtue. 

XVII. The inference is made too in this man- 
ner* A wicked life has nothing to be spoken of 
nor gloried in : nor has that life, which is neither 



OF CICERO. 24$ 

happy nor miserable. But there is a kind of life 
that admits of being spoken of and gloried in, and 
boasted of, as Epaminondas saith, 

The wings of Sparta's pride my counsels clipt. 

Thus Africanus, 

Who, from beyond Mseotis, to the place 
Where the sun rises, deeds like mine can trace ? 

If then there is such a thing as a happy life, it is 
to be gloried in, spoken of, and commended by the 
person who enjoys it ; but there is nothing, ex- 
cepting that, which can be spoken of, or gloried 
in ; which admitted, you know what follows. Now 
unless an honorable life is a happy life, there must 
of course be something preferable to a happy life. 
For they will certainly grant honor to have the 
preference. Thus there will be something better 
than a happy life: than which what can be more 
absurd? What! When they grant vice to be 
effectual to the rendering life miserable, must they 
not admit the same force to be in virtue to the 
making it happy ? For contraries follow from con- 
traries. And here I ask, what they think of Crito- 
laus's balance ? who, having put the goods of the 
mind into one scale, and the goods of the body 
and other external advantages into the other, 
thought the goods of the mind so to outweigh 
them, as to outbalance even the earth and sea. 

XVIII. What hinders then that gravest of 
philosophers, and Xenocrates too, who raises virtue 



250 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

so high, and who lessens and depreciates every 
thing else, from not only placing a happy life, but 
the happiest, in virtue : which were it not so, virtue 
would be absolutely lost. For whoever is subject 
to grief, must necessarily be subject to fear too; 
for fear is an uneasy apprehension of future grief : 
and whoever is subject to fear, is liable to dread, 
timidity, consternation, cowardice. Therefore 
such a one may some time or other be over for- 
ward, nor think himself concerned with that 
precept of Atreus, 

Through his whole life a stranger to defeat. 
But such a one as I said will be defeated, and not 
only defeated, but made a slave of. But we would 
have virtue always free, always invincible : and 
were it not so, there would be an end of virtue. 
But if virtue hath in herself all that is necessary for 
a good life, she is certainly sufficient for happiness : 
virtue is certainly sufficient too for our living with 
courage; if with courage, then with a great 
mind, and indeed so as never to be under any fear, 
and thus to be always invincible. Hence it fol- 
lows, that there can be nothing to be repented of, 
no wants, no lets or hindrances. Thus all things 
must be prosperous, perfect, and as you would 
have them ; and consequently happy ; but virtue 
is sufficient for living with courage, and therefore 
able to make your life happy. For as folly, even 
when possessed of what it desires, never thinks it 



OF CICERO. 2.5 1 

has acquired enough: so wisdom is always satis- 
fied with the present, and never repents on her 
own account. Look but on the single consulate 
of Laelius, and that too after having been set aside 
(though when a wise and good man, like him, is 
outvoted, the people are disappointed of a good 
consul, rather than he disappointed by a vain 
people) ; but the point is, would you prefer, were 
it in your power, to be once such a consul as 
Laelius, or be elected four times as Cinna ? I am 
very well satisfied what answer you will make, 
and it is on that account I put the question to you. 
XIX. I will not ask every one this question ; for 
some one perhaps might answer, that he would not 
only prefer four consulates to one, but even one 
day of Cinna's life, to ages of many and famous men. 
Laelius would have suffered, had he but touched any 
one with his finger; but Cinna ordered the head of 
his colleague consul Cn.Octavius to be struck off; 
and of P. Crassus, and L. Caesar, those excellent 
men, so renowned both at home and abroad. Even 
M. Antonius, the greatest orator I ever heard; 
with C. Caesar, who seems to me to have been the 
pattern of humanity, politeness, sweetness of tem- 
per, and wit. Could he then be happy who oc- 
casioned the death of these ? So far from it, that 
he not only seems to me miserable for doing thus ; 
but for acting in such a manner, that it was even 



252 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

lawful for him to do it, though it is unlawful for 
any one to do wicked actions ; but this proceeds 
from inaccuracy of speech, for we call whatever a 
man is allowed to do, lawful. Was not Marius 
happier, I pray you, when he shared the glory of 
the victory gained over the Cimbrians, with his 
colleague Catulus, who was almost another 
Laelius (for I look upon him as very like) ; than, 
when conqueror in the civil war, he in a passion 
answered the friends of Catulus, who were inter- 
ceding for him : u Let him die," and this he did 
not once, but often? In which he was happier 
who submitted to that barbarous decree, than he 
who issued it. And it is better to receive an injury 
than to do one ; so was it better to advance a little 
to meet that death, that was making its ap- 
proaches, as Catulus did ; than, like Marius, to 
sully the glory of six consulates, and disgrace his 
latter days by the death of such a man. 

XX. Dionysius exercised his tyranny over the 
Syracusians thirty-eight years, being but twenty- 
five years old when he seized on the government. 
How beautiful and how wealthy a city did he 
oppress with slavery ! And yet we have it from 
good authority, that he was remarkably temperate 
in his manner of living, that he was very quick 
and diligent in carrying on business, but naturally 
mischievous and unjust. Whence every one who 



OF CICERO. Q53 

diligently enquires into truth, must necessarily 
see that he was very miserable. Neither did he 
attain what he so greatly desired, even when he 
was persuaded he had unlimited power. For not- 
withstanding he was of a good family and re- 
putable parents (though that is contested) and 
had a great acquaintance of intimate friends and 
relations, he could not trust any one of them, but 
committed the guard of his person to some slaves, 
whom he had selected from rich men's families 
and made free, and to strangers and barbarians. 
And thus, through an unjust desire of governing, 
he in a manner shut himself up in a prison. Be- 
sides, he would not trust his throat to a barber, 
but had his daughters taught to shave ; so that 
these royal virgins were forced to descend to the 
base and slavish employment of shaving the head 
and beard of their father. Nor would he trust 
even them, when they were grown up, with a 
razor : but contrived how they might burn off 
the hair of his head and beard with .red-hot nut- 
shells. And as to his two wives, Aristomache his 
countrywoman, and Doris of Locris, he never 
visited them at night before every thing had been 
well searched and examined. And as he had sur- 
rounded the place where his bed was, with a 
broad ditch, and made a way over it with a 
wooden bridge ; he drew that bridge over after 
shutting his bedchamber door. And as he did 



254 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

not dare to stand where they usually harangued, 
he generally addressed the people from a high 
tower. And it is said that when he was disposed to 
play at tennis, for he delighted much in it, and 
had pulled off his clothes, he used to give his 
sword into the keeping of a young man whom he 
was very fond of. On this one of his intimates 
said pleasantly, ' You certainly trust your life 
with him ;' the young man happening to smile at 
this, he ordered them both to be slain, the one for 
shewing how he might be taken off, the other 
for approving of what was said by his smiling. 
But he was so concerned at what he had done, 
that nothing affected him more during his whole 
life : for he had slain one he was extremely par- 
tial to. Thus do weak men's desires pull them 
different ways, and whilst they indulge one, they 
act counter to another. This tyrant, however, 
showed how happy he esteemed himself. 

XXI. For whilst Damocles, one of his flatte- 
rers, was talking in conversation about his forces, 
his wealth, the greatness of his power, the plenty 
he enjoyed, the grandeur of his royal palaces, and 
was maintaining that no one was ever happier: 
" Have you an inclination," saith he, " Damocles, 
as this kind of life pleases you, to have a taste of 
it yourself, and try to make a trial of the good 
fortune that attends me ?" " I should be glad to 
make the experiment," says Damocles ; upon 



OF CICERO. £55 

which Dionysius ordered him to be laid on a bed 
of gold, with the most beautiful covering, embroi- 
dered, and wrought in a high taste, and he dressed 
out a great many sideboards with silver and em- 
bossed gold. He then ordered some youths, dis- 
tinguished for their handsome persons, to wait at 
his table, and to observe his nod, in order to serve 
him with what he wanted. There were ointments 
and garlands ; perfumes were burned ; tables 
provided with the most exquisite meats. Damo- 
cles thought himself very happy. In the midst of 
this apparatus Dionysius ordered a bright sword 
to be let down from the ceiling, tied by a horse- 
hair, so as to hang over the head of that happy 
man. After which he neither cast his eye on 
those handsome waiters, nor on the well wrought 
plate ; nor touched any of the provisions : the 
garlands fell to pieces. At last he entreated 
the tyrant to give him leave to go, for r that 
now he had no desire to be happy. Doth 
not Dionysius, then, seem to have declared there 
can be no happiness with one who is under con- 
stant apprehensions ? But he was not now at liberty 
to return to justice, and restore his citizens their 
rights and privileges ; for by the indiscretion of 
youth he had engaged in so many wrong steps, 
and committed such extravagancies, that had he 
attempted to have returned to a right way of 
thinking, he must have endangered his life. 



%56 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

XXII. Yet, how desirous he was of those very 
friends, whose fidelity he dreaded, appears from 
the two Pythagoreans : one of these had been 
security for his friend, who was condemned to 
die ; the other, to release his security, presented 
himself at the time appointed for his dying : " I 
wish," said Dionysius, " you would admit me as 
a third." What misery was it for him to be 
deprived of acquaintance, of company at his 
table, and of the freedom of conversation ; espe- 
cially for one who was a man of learning, and 
from his childhood acquainted with liberal arts, 
very fond of music, and himself a tragedian, how 
good a one is not to the purpose, for I know not 
how it is, but in this way, more than any other, 
every one thinks his own performances excellent ; 
I never as yet knew any poet (and Aquinius was 
my friend) who did not give himself the prefer- 
ence. The case is this, you are pleased with your 
own, I like mine. But to return to Dionysius ; 
he debarred himself from all civil and polite con- 
versation, spent his life among fugitives, bondmen, 
and barbarians : for he was persuaded no one 
could be his friend, who was worthy of liberty, or 
had the least desire of being free. Shall I not then 
prefer the life of Plato and Archytas, manifestly 
wise and learned men, to his, than which nothing 
can possibly be more horrid and miserable ? 

XXIII. I will present you with an humble 



OF CICERO. 257 

and obscure mathematician of the same city^ 
called Archimedes, who lived many years after : 
whose tomb, overgrown with shrubs and briars, I 
in my quaestorship discovered, when the Syracu- 
sians knew nothing of it, and even denied that 
there was any such thing remaining : for I re- 
membered some verses, which I had been informed 
were engraved on his monument. These set forth 
that on the top of it there was placed a sphere 
with a cylinder. When I had carefully examined 
all the monuments (for there are a great many) 
at the gate Achradinas, I observed a small column 
standing out a little above the briars, with the 
figure of a sphere and a cylinder upon it ; where- 
upon I immediately said to the Syracusians, for 
there were some of their principal magistrates 
there, that I imagined that was what I was 
inquiring for. Several men being sent in with 
scythes, cleared the way, and made an opening for 
us. When we could get at it, and were come 
near to the front base of it, I found the inscrip- 
tion, though the latter parts of all the verses were 
efTaced almost half away. Thus one of the noblest 
cities of Greece, and once, likewise, the most 
learned, had known nothing of the monument of 
its most ingenious citizen, if it had not been 
discovered to them by a native of Arpinum. But to 
return from whence I have rambled. Who is there 
in the least acquainted with the Muses, that is, with 



258 THE TUSCXJLAN DISPUTATIONS 

liberal knowledge, or that deals at all in learning, 
who would not choose to be this mathematician 
rather than that tyrant ? If we look into their me- 
thods of living and their employments, we shall find 
the mind of the one strengthened and improved, 
with tracing the deductions of reason, amused with 
his own ingenuity, the sweetest food of the mind ; 
the thoughts of the other engaged in continual 
murders and injuries, in constant fears by night 
and by day. Now imagine a Democritus, a Pytha- 
goras, and an Anaxagoras ; what kingdom, what 
riches would you prefer to their studies and 
amusements ? for you must necessarily look there 
for the best of every thing, where the excellency 
of man is ; but what is there better in man than 
a sagacious and good mind ? Now the enjoying of 
that good can alone make us happy : but virtue is 
the good of the mind ; it follows, therefore, that a 
happy life depends on that. Hence proceed 
all things that are beautiful, honest, and excellent, 
as I said above : but these, I think, must be 
treated of more at large, for they are well stored 
with joys. For, as it is clear that a happy life con- 
sists in perpetual and unexhausted pleasures, it 
follows too that a happy life must arise from 
honesty. 

XXIV. But that what I propose to demon- 
strate to you may not rest in mere words only, I 
must set before you the picture of something, as 



OF CICERO. Q59 

it were, living* and moving in the world, that may 
dispose us more for the improvement of the under- 
standing and real knowledge. Let us then pitch 
upon some man perfectly acquainted with the 
most excellent arts ; let us present him for a 
while to our own thoughts, and figure him to our 
own imaginations. In the first place, he must 
necessarily be of an extraordinary capacity ; for 
virtue is not easily connected with dull minds. 
Next, he must have a great desire of discovering 
truth, from whence will arise that threefold pro- 
duction of the mind ; one depends on knowing 
things, and explaining nature : the other in de- 
fining what we should desire, and what avoid : 
the third in judging of consequences and impos- 
sibilities : in which consists as well subtilty in 
disputing, as clearness of judgment. Now with 
what pleasure must the mind of a wise man be 
affected, which continually dwells in the midst of 
such cares and engagements as these, when he 
views the revolutions and motions of the whole 
world, and sees those innumerable stars in the 
heavens, which, though fixed in their places, yet 
have a common motion with the whole, and ob- 
serves the seven other stars, some higher, some 
lower, each maintaining their own course, while 
their motions, though wandering, have limited 
and appointed spaces to run through! The sight 
of which doubtless urged and encouraged those 



260 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

ancient philosophers to employ their search on 
many other things. Hence arose an enquiry after 
the beginnings, and, as it were, seeds from whence 
all things were produced and composed ; what 
was the origin of every kind as well animate as 
inanimate, articulate as inarticulate ; what occa- 
sioned their beginning and end, and by what 
alteration and change one thing was converted 
into another : whence the earth, and by what 
weights it was balanced : by what caverns the 
seas were supplied : by what gravity all things 
being carried down tend always to the middle 
of the world, which in any round body is the 
lowest place. 

XXV. A mind employed on such subjects, and 
which night and day contemplates on them, has 
in itself that precept of the Delphic god, to 
" know itself," and to perceive its connexion with 
the divine reason, from whence it is filled with an 
insatiable joy. For reflections on the power and 
nature of the gods raise a desire of imitating their 
eternity. Nor doth the mind, that sees the neces- 
sary dependencies and connexions that one cause 
has with another, think itself confinable to the 
shortness of this life. Those causes, though they 
proceed from eternity to eternity, are governed 
by reason and understanding. Whoever beholds 
these and examines them, or rather whose view 
takes in all the parts and boundaries of things, with 



OF CICERO. 261 

what tranquillity of mind doth he look on all 
human affairs, and what is nearer him ! Hence 
proceeds the knowledge of virtue ; hence arise 
the kinds and species of virtues ; hence is dis- 
covered what nature regards as the bounds and 
extremities of good and evil, to what all duties 
have respect, and which is the most eligible 
manner of life. One great effect that arises from 
informing himself of these, and such like things, 
is, that virtue is of itself sufficient to a happy life, 
which is the subject of this disputation. 

The third qualification of our wise man comes 
next, which goes through and spreads itself over 
every part of wisdom ; it is that whereby we 
define every particular thing, distinguish the genus 
from its species, connect consequences, draw just 
conclusions, and distinguish true and false, which 
is the very art and science of disputing ; which is 
not only of the greatest use in the examination of 
what passes in the world, but is likewise the most 
rational entertainment, and most becoming true 
wisdom. Such are its effects in retirement. Now let 
our wise man be considered as protecting the re- 
public ; what can be more excellent than such a 
character? By his prudence he will discover the true 
interests of his fellow-citizens, by his justice he will 
be prevented from applying what belongs to the 
public to his own use ; and in short, he will be ever 
governed by all * the virtues, which are many 



262 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

and various ? To these let us add the advantage of 
his friendships ; in which the learned reckon not 
only a natural harmony and agreement of senti- 
ments throughout the conduct of life, but the 
utmost pleasure and satisfaction in conversing and 
passing our time constantly with one another. 
What can be wanting to such a life as this, to make 
it more happy than it is ? Fortune herself must 
yield to a life stored with such joys. Now if it be 
a happiness to rejoice in such goods of the mind, 
that is, virtue, and all wise men enjoy thoroughly 
these pleasures ; it must necessarily be granted 
that all such are happy. 

XXVI. A. What, when in torments and on 
the rack ? M. Do you imagine I am speak- 
ing of him as laid on roses and violets ? Is it 
allowable even for Epicurus (who only affects 
being a philosopher, and who assumed that name 
to himself,) to say, and as matters stand, I com- 
mend him for his saying, a wise man may at 
all times cry out, though he be burned, tortured, 
cut to pieces, How little I regard it ? Shall this be 
said by one who defines all evil by pain, every 
good by pleasure ; who could ridicule whatever 
we say either of what is honest, or what is base, 
and could declare of us that we were employed 
about words, and discharging mere empty sounds ; 
and that nothing is to be regarded, but as it is 
perceived smooth or rough by the body ? What, 



OF CICERO. 263 

shall such a man as this, as I said, whose under- 
standing is little superior to the beasts, be at 
liberty to forget himself ; and not only despise for- 
tune, when the whole of his good and evil is in the 
power of fortune, but say, that he is happy in the 
most racking torture, when he had actually declared 
pain not only the greatest evil, but the only one ? 
And all this without having recourse to our reme- 
dies for bearing pain, such as firmness of mind, a 
shame of doing any thing base, exercise, and the 
habit of patience, precepts of courage, and a 
manly hardiness : but saith, he supports himself on 
the single recollection of past pleasure ; as if any 
one, being so hot as scarce to be able to bear it, 
should attempt to recollect that he was once in my 
country Arpinum, where he was surrounded on 
every side by cooling streams ; for I do not ap- 
prehend how past pleasures can allay present 
evils. But when he saith that a wise man is 
always happy, who has no right to say so, can 
he be consistent with himself ? What may they 
not do, who allow nothing to be desirable, nothing 
to be looked on as good but what is honest ? Let 
then the Peripatetics and old Academics follow 
my example, and at length leave off to mutter to 
themselves : and openly and with a clear voice 
let them be bold to say, that a happy life may 
descend into Phalaris's bull. 

XXVII. But to dismiss the subtilties of the 



264 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

Stoics, which I am sensible I have dealt more in than 
necessary, let us admit of three kinds of goods : 
let them really be the three kinds of good, pro- 
vided no regard is had to the body, and externals, 
as no otherwise entitled to the appellation of good, 
than as we are obliged to use them : but let those 
other and divine goods spread themselves far and 
near, and reach the very heavens. Why then 
may I not call him happy, nay, the happiest, who 
has attained them ? Shall a wise man be afraid 
of pain ? which is, indeed, the greatest enemy to 
our opinion. For I am persuaded we are pre- 
pared and fortified sufficiently, by the disputations 
of the foregoing days, against our own death, or 
the death of our friends, against grief and the 
other perturbations of the mind. Pain seems to 
be the sharpest adversary of virtue, that threatens 
us with burning torches ; that threatens to take 
down our fortitude, greatness of mind, and 
patience. Shall virtue then yield to this ? Shall 
the happy life of a wise and constant man submit 
to this ? Good gods ! how base would this be ! 
Spartan boys will bear to have their bodies torn 
by rods without uttering a groan. I myself saw, 
at Lacedsemon, troops of young men, with great 
earnestness contending together with their hands 
and feet, with their teeth and nails, nay even 
ready to expire, rather than own themselves 
conquered. Is any country more savagely bar- 



OF CICERO. 265 

barous than India ? Yet they have amongst 
them some that are held for wise men, who never 
wear any clothes all their life long, and bear the 
snow of Caucasus, and the piercing cold of winter, 
without any pain : and will throw themselves into 
the fire to be burned without a groan. The 
women too in India, on the death of their 
husbands, apply to the judge to have it deter- 
mined which of them was best beloved by him ; 
for it is customary there for one man to have 
many wives. She in whose favour it is deter- 
mined, attended by her relations, is laid on the 
pile with her husband : the others, who are post- 
poned, walk away very much dejected. Custom 
can never be superior to nature : for nature is 
never to be got the better of. But our minds are 
infected by sloth arid idleness, delicacies, languor, 
and indolence : we have enervated them by opi- 
nions, and bad customs. Who but knows the 
manner of the Egyptians ? Their minds being 
tainted by pernicious opinions, they are ready to 
bear any torture, rather than hurt an ibis, a snake, 
cat, dog, or crocodile : and should any one inad- 
vertently have hurt any of these, they submit to 
any punishment. So far of human nature. As 
to the beasts, do they not bear cold, hunger, run- 
ning about in woods, and on mountains and de- 
serts ? will they not fight for their young ones till 
they are wounded ? Are they afraid of any at- 



266 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

tacks or blows ? I mention not what the ambi- 
tious will suffer for honour's sake, or those 
who are desirous of praise on account of glory, or 
lovers to gratify their lust. Life is full of such 
instances. 

XXVIII. But not to dwell too much on these, 
and to return to our purpose. I say, and say 
again, that happiness will submit even to be tor- 
mented ; and after having accompanied justice, 
temperance, but principally fortitude, greatness 
of soul and patience will not stop short at sight 
of the executioner; and when all other virtues 
proceed calmly to the torture, will that halt, as I 
said, on the outside and threshold of the prison ? 
for, what can be baser, what can carry a worse ap- 
pearance, than to be left alone, separated from 
those beautiful attendants ? which can by no 
means be the case : for neither can the virtues 
hold together without happiness, nor happiness 
without the virtues : so that they will not suffer 
her to desert them, but will carry that along with 
them, to whatever torments, to whatever pain 
they are led. For it is the peculiar quality of a 
wise man to do nothing that he may repent oi) 
nothing against his inclination : but always to 
act nobly, with constancy, gravity, and honesty : 
to depend on nothing as certainty : to wonder at 
nothing, when it falls out, as if it appeared new 
and unexpected to him: to be independent of 



OF CICERO. c 267 

every one, and abide by his own opinion. For 
my part, I cannot form an idea of any thing- 
happier than this. The conclusion of the Stoics 
indeed is easy, as they are persuaded that the end 
of good is to live agreeably to nature, and be 
consistent with that ; as a wise man should do 
so, not only because it is his duty, but because it 
is in his power. It must of course follow, that 
whoever has the chief good in his power, has his 
happiness so too. Thus the life of a wise man is 
always happy. You have here what I think may 
be confidently said of a happy life, and as things 
are now, very truly, unless you can advance 
something better. 

XXIX. A. Indeed I cannot ; but I would 
willingly request of you, unless it is troublesome 
(as you are under no confinement from obligations 
to any particular sect, but gather from all of 
them whatever most strikes you with the appear- 
ance of probability :) as you just now seemed to 
advise the Peripatetics, and the old Academy, 
boldly to speak out without reserve, " that wise 
men are always the happiest," I should be glad to 
hear how you think it consistent for them to say 
so, when you have said so much against that 
opinion, and the conclusions of the Stoics. M. I 
will make use then of that liberty, which none but 
ourselves have the privilege of using in philosophy, 
whose discourses determine nothing, but take in 



( 268 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

every thing, leaving them, unsupported by any 
authority, to be judged of by others, according to 
their weight. And as you seem desirous of know- 
ing why, notwithstanding the different opinion of 
philosophers, with regard to the ends of goods, 
virtue may have sufficient security for a happy 
life : which security, as we are informed, Car- 
neades used indeed to dispute against : but he 
disputed as against the Stoics, whose opinions he 
combated with great zeal and vehemence ; but I 
shall handle it with more temper ; for if the Stoics 
have rightly settled the ends of goods, the affair is 
at an end ; for a wise man must necessarily be 
always happy. But let us examine, if we can, the 
particular opinions of the others, that this excel- 
lent decision, if I may so call it, of a happy life, 
may be agreeable to the opinions and discipline of 
all. 

XXX. These then are the opinions, as I think, 
that are held and defended : the first four simple 
ones ; " that nothing is good but what is honest," 
according to the Stoics : " nothing good but plea- 
sure," as Epicurus maintains : " nothing good but 
a freedom from pain," as Hieronymus asserts : 
" nothing good but an enjoyment of the principal, 
or all, or the greatest goods of nature," as Car- 
neades maintained against the Stoics : these are 
simple, the others mixt. Three kinds of goods ; 
the greatest those of the mind, the next those of 



OF CICERO. %69 

the body, The third were external goods, as the 
Peripatetics say, and the old Academics differ 
very little from them. Clitomachus and Callipho 
have coupled pleasure with honesty : but Diodorus, 
the Peripatetic, has joined indolence to honesty. 
These are the opinions that have some footing ; 
for those of Aristo, Pyrrho, Herillus, and of some 
others, are quite out of date. Now let us see what 
they have of weight in them, excepting the Stoics, 
whose opinion I think I have sufficiently defended ; 
and indeed I have explained what the Peripatetics 
have to say; excepting that Theophrastus, and 
those who followed him, dread and abhor pain in 
too weak a manner. The others may go on to 
exaggerate the gravity and dignity of virtue, as 
usual ; which when they have extolled to the 
skies, with the usual extravagance of good orators, 
it is easy to reduce the other to nothing by com- 
parison, and to despise them. They who think 
praise is to be acquired by pain, are not at liberty 
to deny those to be happy, who have acquired it. 
Though they may be under some evils, yet this 
name of happy extends very widely. 

XXXI. Even as trading is said to be lucrative, 
and farming advantageous, not because the one 
never meets with any loss, or the other no damage 
from the inclemency of the weather, but because 
they succeed in general: so life may be pro- 
perly called happy, not from its being entirely 



270 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

made up of good things, but as it abounds with 
these to a great and considerable degree. By this 
way of reasoning, then, a happy life may attend vir- 
tue even to punishments ; nay, may descend with her 
into Phalaris's bull, according to Aristotle, Xeno- 
crates, Speusippus, Polemon ; and will not be gained 
over by any allurements to forsake her. Of the same 
opinion will Calliphon and Diodorus be : both of 
them such friends to virtue, as to think all 
things should be discarded and far removed, that 
are compatible with it. The rest seem to be more 
scrupulous about these things, but yet get clear of 
them ; as Epicurus, Hieronymus, and whoever 
thinks it worth while to defend the deserted Car- 
neades : not one of them but thinks the mind to be 
judge of those goods, and can sufficiently instruct 
him how to despise what has the appearance only 
of good or evil. For what seems to you to be the 
case with Epicurus, it is the same with Hierony- 
mus and Carneades, and indeed with all the rest 
of them : for who is not sufficiently prepared 
against death and pain ? I will begin, with your 
leave, with him whom we call soft and voluptuous. 
What ! doth he seem to you to be afraid of death 
or pain, who calls the day of his death happy ; and 
when affected by the greatest pains, silences them 
all by recollecting arguments of his own discover- 
ing ? And this is not done in such a manner as to 
give room for imagining that he talks thus wildly on 



OF CICERO. 27 1 

a sudden start : but his opinion of death is, that on 
the dissolution of the animal, all sense is lost, and 
what is deprived of sense, as he thinks, can no way 
affect us. And as to pain, he has his maxims too : 
if great, the comfort is, that it must be short ; if 
of long continuance, it must be tolerable. What 
then ? Do those great boasters declare any thing 
better than Epicurus, in opposition to these two 
things which distress us the most? And as to 
other things, do not Epicurus and the rest of the 
philosophers seem sufficiently prepared ? Who 
doth not dread poverty ? And yet no true philo- 
sopher ever can. 

XXXII. But with how little is this man satis- 
fied ? No one has said more on frugality. For 
when a man is far removed from those things 
which occasion a desire of money, from love, am- 
bition, or other daily expenses ; why should he be 
fond of money, or concern himself at all about it ? 
Could the Scythian Anacharsis disregard money, 
and shall not our philosophers be able to do 
so ? We are informed of an epistle of his, 
in these words : " Anacharsis to Hanno, greeting. 
My clothing is as the Scythians cover themselves ; 
the hardness of my feet supplies the want of shoes ; 
the ground is my bed, hunger my sauce, my food 
milk, cheese, and flesh. So you may come to a 
man in no want. But as to those presents you take 



272 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

so much pleasure in, you may dispose of them to 
your own citizens, or to the immortal gods. "Almost 
all the philosophers, whatever their discipline be, 
excepting those who are warped from right reason 
by a vicious disposition, aree of this very opi- 
nion. Socrates, when he saw in a procession a 
great deal of gold and silver, cried out, " How 
many things are there I do not want ! " Xeno- 
crates, when some ambassadors from Alexander 
had brought him fifty talents, the largest money 
of those times, especially at Athens, carried the 
ambassadors to sup in the academy : and placed 
just a sufficiency before them, without any appa- 
ratus. When they asked him the next day to 
whom he would order the money to be told out : 
a What ?" saith he, a . did you not perceive by our 
slight repast of yesterday, that I had no occasion 
for money ? " But when he perceived that they 
were somewhat dejected, he accepted of thirty 
minae, that he might not seem to disrespect the 
king's generosity. But Diogenes took a greater 
liberty as a Cynic, when Alexander asked him if 
he wanted any thing : " A little from the sun," 
said he, for Alexander hindered him from sunning 
himself. And indeed this very man used to main- 
tain how much he excelled the Persian king, in 
his manner of life and fortune ; that he himself 
was in want of nothing, the other never had 



OF CICERO. £73 

enough; that he had no inclination for those 
pleasures which could never satisfy the other : and 
that the other could never obtain his. 

XXXIII. You see, I imagine, how Epicurus 
has divided his kinds of desires, not very subtilely 
perhaps, but usefully : that they are " partly na- 
tural and necessary ; partly natural, but not 
necessary ; partly neither." Those which are 
necessary may be supplied almost for nothing; 
for the things that nature requires are easily 
obtained. As to the second kind of desires, his 
opinion is, that any one may easily either enjoy 
or go without them. With regard to the third, 
being frivolous, as neither allied to necessity nor 
nature, he thinks they should be entirely rooted 
out. On this topic the Epicureans dispute much ; 
and those pleasures which they do not despise, on 
account of their species, they reduce one by one, 
and seem rather for lessening the number of them : 
for as to wanton pleasures, of which they say a 
great deal, these, say they, are easy, common, 
and within any one's reach ; and think that if 
nature requires them, they are not to be estimated 
by birth, condition, or rank, but by shape, age, 
and person : and that it is by no means difficult to 
refrain from them, should health, duty, or repu- 
tation require it ; and that this kind of pleasure 
may be desirable, where it is attended with no in- 
convenience, but can never be of any use. And 

T 



274 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

what he declares upon the whole of pleasure is 
such, as shows his opinion to be, that pleasure is 
always desirable, to be pursued merely as a plea- 
sure ; and for the same reason pain is to be 
avoided, because it is pain. So that a wise man 
will always do himself the justice to avoid plea- 
sure, should pain ensue from it in a greater pro- 
portion ; and will submit to pain, the effects of 
which will be a greater pleasure : so that all plea- 
surable things, though the corporeal senses are 
the judges of them, are to be referred to the 
mind, on which account the body rejoices, whilst 
it perceives a present pleasure ; but that the 
mind not only perceives the present as well as the 
body, but foresees it, whilst it is coming, and, 
even when it is past, will not let it quite slip 
away. So that a wise man enjoys a continual 
series of pleasures, uniting the expectation of 
future pleasure to the recollection of what he has 
already tasted. The like notions are applied by 
them to high living and the magnificence and 
expensiveness of entertainments are deprecated* 
because nature is satisfied at a small expense. 

XXXIV. For who doth not see this, that an 
appetite is the best sauce ? When Darius, flying 
from the enemy, had drunk some water which 
was muddy, and tainted with dead bodies, he de- 
clared that he had never drunk any thing more 
pleasant ; the case was, he had never drunk before 



OF CICERO. 275 

when he was thirsty. Nor had Ptolemy ever ate 
when he was hungry: for as he was travelling 
over Egypt, his company not keeping up with 
him, he had some coarse bread presented him in a 
cottage : upon which he said, " Nothing ever 
seemed to him pleasanter than that bread." They 
relate of Socrates, that, once walking very fast till 
the evening, on his being asked why he did so, 
his reply was, that he was purchasing an appetite 
by walking, that he might sup the better. And 
do we not see what the Lacedemonians provide 
in their Phiditia ? where the tyrant Dionysius 
supped, but told them he did not at all like that 
black broth, which was their principal dish; on 
this he who dressed it said, " It was no wonder, 
for it wanted seasoning." Dionysius asked what 
that seasoning was; to which it was replied, 
" fatigue in hunting, sweating, a race on the 
banks of Eurotas, hunger, and thirst:" for these 
are the seasonings to the Lacedemonian banquets. 
And this may not only be conceived from the 
custom of men, but from the beasts, who are 
satisfied with any thing that is thrown before them, 
provided it is not unnatural, and they seek no far- 
ther. Some entire cities, taught by custom, are de- 
lighted with parsimony, as I said but just now of the 
Lacedemonians. Xenophon has given an account 
of the Persian diet : who never, as he saith, use 
any thing but cresses with their bread, not but 



276 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

that, should nature require any thing more agree- 
able, many things might be easily supplied by the 
ground, and plants in great abundance, and of 
incomparable sweetness. Add to this, strength 
and health, as the consequence of this abstemious 
way of living. Now compare with this, those who 
sweat and belch, crammed with eating like fatted 
oxen : then will you perceive that they who pur- 
sue pleasure most, attain it least : and that the 
pleasure of eating lies not in satiety, but appetite. 
XXXV. They report of Timotheus, a famous 
man at Athens, and the head of the city, that 
having supped with Plato, and being extremely 
delighted with his entertainment, on seeing him 
the next day he said, " Your suppers are not only 
agreeable whilst I partake of them, but the next 
day also." Besides, the understanding is impaired 
when we are full with over-eating and drinking. 
There is an excellent epistle of Plato to Dion's 
relations. It is written almost in these words ; 
" When I came there, that happy life so much 
talked of, crowded with Italian and Syracusan 
entertainments, was no ways agreeable to me; to 
be crammed twice a day, and never to have the 
night to yourself, and other things which attend 
on this kind of life, by which a man will never be 
made the wiser, and may be much less moderate ; 
for it must be an extraordinary disposition that 
can be temperate in such circumstances." How 



OF CICERO. 077 

then can a life be pleasant without prudence and 
moderation ? Hence you discover the mistake of 
Sardanapalus, the wealthiest king of the Assyri- 
ans, who ordered it to be engraved on his tomb, 

I still possess what luxury did cost; 
But what I left, though excellent, is lost. 

" What but this," saith Aristotle, " could be 
inscribed on the tomb, not of a king but an ox ?" 
He said that he possessed those things when 
dead, which, in his life-time, he could have no 
longer than whilst he was enjoying them. Why 
then are riches desired ? And wherein doth po- 
verty prevent us from being happy ? In the 
want, I imagine, of statues, pictures, and diver- 
sions. Should any one be delighted with these, 
have not the poor people the enjoyment of these 
more than they who have them in the greatest 
abundance ? For we have great numbers of them 
shown publicly in our city. And whatever pri- 
vate people may have of them, they have not 
many of them, and they but seldom see them, 
only when they go to their country seats ; and 
some of them must be stung to the heart when 
they consider how they came by them. The day 
would fail me, should I be inclined to defend the 
cause of poverty : the thing is manifest, and na- 
ture daily informs us, how few little trifling things 
she really stands in need of. 

XXXVI. Let us enquire then, if obscurity, 



278 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

the want of power, or even the being unpopular, 
can prevent a wise man from being happy ? 
Observe if popular favour, and this glory which 
they are so fond of, be not attended with more un- 
easiness than pleasure ? Our Demosthenes was 
certainly very weak in declaring himself pleased 
with a woman who carried water, as is the cus- 
tom in Greece, whispering to another, " that is 
he, that is Demosthenes." What could be weaker 
than this ? And yet what an orator he was ! But 
although he had learned to speak to others, he 
had conversed but little with himself. We may 
perceive that popular glory is not desirable of 
itself ; nor is obscurity to be dreaded. u I came 
to Athens," saith Democritus, " and there was no 
one there that knew me ;" this was a moderate 
and grave man, who could glory in his obscurity. 
Shall musicians compose their tunes to their own 
taste; and shall a philosopher, master of a much, 
better art, enquire, not after what is most true 
but what will please the people ? Can any thing 
be more absurd than to despise the vulgar as mere 
unpolished mechanics, when single, and to think 
them of consequence when collected into a body ? 
These wise men would contemn our ambitious 
pursuits, and our vanities, and would reject all 
honours the people could voluntarily offer to 
them : but we know not how to despise them, till 
we begin to repent of having accepted them. 



OF CICERO. 279 

Heraclitus, the natural philosopher, relates thus 
of Hermodorus the chief of the Ephesians ; " that 
all the Ephesians/' saith he, "ought to be punished 
with death, for saying, when they had expelled 
Hermodorus out of their city, that they would 
have no one amongst them better than another ; 
if there were any such, let him go elsewhere to 
some other people." Is not this the case with the 
people every where ? do they not hate every virtue 
that distinguishes itself? What? was not Aristides 
(I had rather instance in the Greeks than our- 
selves) banished his country for being eminently 
just ? What troubles, then, are they free from, 
who have no connexions with the people! What 
is more agreeable than a learned retirement ? I 
speak of that learning which makes us acquainted 
with the boundless extent of nature, and the 
universe, and in this world discovers to us both 
heaven, earth, and sea. 

XXXVII. If then honour and riches have no value, 
what is there else to be afraid of? Banishment, I 
suppose ; which is looked on as the greatest evil. 
Now, if the evil of banishment proceeds not from 
ourselves, but from the froward disposition of the 
people, I have just now declared how contemptible 
it is. But if to leave one's country be miserable, the 
provinces are full of miserable men: very few of 
those ever return to their country again. But 
exiles are amerced of their goods! What then? Has 



280 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

there not been enough said on bearing poverty ? 
But with regard to banishment, if we examine the 
nature of things, not the ignominy of the name, 
how little doth it differ from constant travelling • 
In which some of the most famous philosophers 
have spent their whole life : as Xenocrates,Crantor, 
Arcesilas, Lacydes, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Zeno, 
Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Antipater, Carneades, 
Pansetius, Clitomachus, Philo, Antiochus, Po- 
sidonius, and innumerable others: who from 
their first setting out never returned home again. 
Now what ignominy can a wise man be affected 
with, (for of such a one I speak,) who can be guilty 
of nothing to occasion it ; for one who is banished 
for his deserts ought not to be comforted. Lastly, 
They can easily reconcile themselves to every ac- 
cident, who make every thing that ensues from 
life conduce to pleasure; so that in whatever 
place these are supplied, there they may live hap- 
pily. Thus what Teucer said may be applied to 
every case : 

Wherever I am happy, there is my country. 

Socrates, indeed, when asked where he belonged 
to, replied, " The world ;" for he looked upon 
himself as a citizen and inhabitant of the whole 
world. How was it with T. Altibutius? Did he 
not follow his 'philosophical studies with the 
greatest satisfaction at Athens, although he was 
banished? which would not have happened 



OF CICERO. 281 

to him, if he had obeyed the laws of Epicurus, 
and lived peaceably in the republic. In what was 
Epicurus happier, living in his country, than Me- 
trodorus at Athens ? Or did Plato's happiness 
exceed that of Xenocrates, orPolemo, or Arcesilas? 
Or is that city to be valued much, that banishes 
all her good and wise men ? Demaratus, the father 
of our king Tarquin, not being able to bear the 
tyrant Cypeselus, fled from Corinth to Tarquinii, 
settled there, and had children. How, was it an 
unwise act in him to prefer e the liberty of banish- 
ment to slavery at home ? 

XXXVIII. Besides the emotions of the mind, 
all griefs and anxieties are assuaged by forgetting 
them, and turning our thoughts to pleasure. 
Therefore it was not without reason, that Epicurus 
presumed to say that a wise man abounds with 
good things, because he may always have his 
pleasures. From whence, as he thinks, our point 
is gained, that a wise man should be always 
happy. What! though he should be deprived of 
the senses of seeing and hearing ? Yes : for he 
holds those things very cheap. For in the first place, 
what are the pleasures we are deprived of by that 
dreadful thing, blindness? For though they allow 
other pleasures to be confined to the senses, yet 
what are perceived by the sight do not depend wholly 
on the pleasure the eyes receive ; as when we 
taste, smell, touch, or hear ; in all these, the organs 



282 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

themselves are the seat of pleasure ; but it is not 
so with the eyes. The mind is entertained by 
what we see; but the mind may be entertained 
many ways, though we could not see at all. I 
am speaking of a learned and wise man, with 
whom to think is to live. But thinking with a 
wise man doth not altogether require the use of 
his eyes in his investigations ; for if night doth not 
strip him of his happiness, why should blindness, 
which resembles night, have that effect? For the 
reply of Antipater the Cyrenaic, to some women 
who bewailed his being blind, though it is a little 
too obscene, had no bad meaning. " What do 
you mean," saith he ; " do you think the night can 
furnish no pleasure V And we find by his magis- 
tracies and his actions, that old Appius too, who 
was blind many years, was not prevented from 
doing whatever was required of him, with respect 
to the public or his own affairs. It is said that C. 
Drusus's house was crowded with clients. When 
they, whose business it was, could not see how to 
conduct themselves, they applied to a blind 
guide. 

XXXIX. When I was a boy, Cn. Aufldius, 
a blind man, who had served the office of prae- 
tor, not only gave his opinion in the senate, and was 
ready to assist his friends, but wrote a Greek 
history, and had an insight into literature. Dio- 
dorus the Stoic was blind, and lived many years at 



OF CICERO. ( 2$3 

my house. He indeed, which is scarce credible, 
besides applying himself more than usual to philo- 
sophy," and playing on the flute agreeably to the 
custom of the Pythagoreans, and having books 
read to him night and day, in all which he did not 
want eyes, contrived to teach geometry, which 
one would think could hardly be done without the 
assistance of eyes, telling his scholars how and 
where to describe every line. They relate of As- 
clepiades, no obscure Eretric philosopher, when 
one asked him what inconveniences he suffered 
from his blindness, that his reply was, " He was at 
the expense of another servant." So that, as the 
most extreme poverty may be borne, if you please, 
as is daily the case with some in Greece : so 
blindness may easily be borne, provided you have 
the proper supports of health. Democritus was 
so blind he could not distinguish white from black : 
but he knew the difference betwixt good and evil, 
just and unjust, honest and base, the useful and 
useless, great and small. Thus one may live hap- 
pily without distinguishing colours ; but without 
acquainting yourself with things, you cannot ; 
and this man was of opinion, that the intense ap- 
plication of the mind was taken off by the objects 
that presented themselves to the eye, and while 
others often could not see what was before their 
feet, he travelled through all infinity. It is 
reported also that Homer was blind, but we ob- 



284 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

serve his painting, as well his poetry. What 
country, what coast, what part of Greece, what 
military attacks, what dispositions of battle, what 
army, what ship, what motions of men and ani- 
mals, has he not so described as to make us see 
what he could not see himself ? What, then, can 
we imagine Homer, or any other learned man can 
want to entertain his mind ? Were it not so, 
would Anaxagoras, or this very Democritus, have 
left their estates and patrimonies, and given them- 
selves up to the pursuit of acquiring this divine 
entertainment ? It is thus, that the poets, who 
have represented Tiresias the Augur as a wise 
man, blind, never exhibit him as bewailing his 
blindness. But as Homer had described Poly- 
pheme as a monster and a wild man, he represents 
him talking with his ram, and speaking of his 
good fortune, that he could go wherever he pleased 
and touch what he would. And so far he was 
right, for that Cyclops was of much the same un- 
derstanding with his ram. 

XL. Now as to the evil of being deaf; M. Cras- 
sus was a little thick of hearing : but it was more 
uneasiness to him that he heard himself ill spoken 
of; though, in my opinion, without reason. Our 
Epicureans cannot understand Greek, nor the 
Greeks Latin ; now, they are deaf reciprocally as 
to each other's language, and we are all truly deaf 
with regard to those innumerable languages which 



OF CICERO. 285 

we do not understand. They do not hear the voice 
of the harper, but then they do not hear the 
grating of a saw when it is setting, or the grunt- 
ing of a hog when his throat is cutting, nor the 
roaring of the sea when they are desirous of rest- 
And if they should chance to be fond of singing, 
they ought in the first place to consider that many 
wise men lived happily before music was disco- 
vered ; besides they may have more pleasure in 
reading verses, than in 'hearing them sung. Then, 
as I before referred the blind to the pleasures 
of hearing, so I may the deaf to the pleasures of 
sight : moreover, whoever can converse with him- 
self doth not need the conversation of another. 
But supposing all these misfortunes to meet in 
one person : suppose him blind and deaf, let him 
be afflicted with the sharpest pains of body, which, 
in the first place, generally of themselves make an 
end of him : but should they continue so long 
and the pain be so exquisite, that there should be 
no reason for bearing them, why, good Gods, 
should we be under any difficulty ? For there is a 
retreat at hand ; — death is that retreat— a shelter 
where we shall for ever be insensible. Theodorus 
said to Lysimachus, who threatened him with 
death, " It is a great matter indeed, for you to do 
what cantharides can." When Perses intreated 
Paulus not to lead him in triumph, u That is as 
you please," said Paulus. I said many things of 



286 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS 

death in our first day's disputation, when death was 
the subject : and not a little the next day when I 
treated of pain, which things if you recollect, 
there can be no danger of your looking upon 
death as undesirable, or at least it will not be 
dreadful. 

XL I. That custom in force with the Grecians 
at their banquets, should, in my opinion, take 
place in life : Drink, say they, or leave the com- 
pany ; and right enough : let him either enjoy the 
pleasure of drinking with others, or not stay till 
he meets with affronts from those that are in 
liquor. Thus those injuries of fortune you cannot 
bear, you should leave. This is the very same 
which is said by Epicurus and Hieronymus. Now 
if those philosophers, whose opinion it is that 
virtue has no power of itself, and who say that 
what we denominate honest and laudable imply 
nothing, and are only set off with an unmeaning 
sound : can they nevertheless maintain that a 
wise man is always happy ? You see what may be 
done by the Socratic and Platonic philosophers. 
Some of these allow such superiority to the goods 
of the mind, as quite to eclipse what concerns the 
body and all accidental circumstances. But others 
do not admit these to be goods ; they repose all 
in the mind : whose disputes Carneades used, as 
an honorary arbitrator, to determine. For as what 
seemed goods to the Peripatetics, were allowed to 



OF CICERO. 287 

be advantages by the Stoics ; and as the Peripa- 
tetics allowed no more to riches, good health, and 
other things of that sort, than the Stoics ; when 
these things were considered according to their 
reality, not by mere report ; his opinion was, that 
there was no ground for disagreeing : Therefore 
let the philosophers, that hold other tenets, see 
how they may carry this point. It is very agree- 
able to me that they make some professions worthy 
the mouth of a philosopher, with regard to a 
man's having always the means of living happily. 
XLII. But as we are to depart in the morn- 
ing, let us remember these five days' disputations, 

hough indeed, I think, I shall write them : for 
how can I better employ the leisure I have, what- 
ever it be owing to ? and I will send these other 
five books to my Brutus ; by whom I was not 
only incited to write on philosophy, but provoked. 
In which it is not easy to say what service I may 
be of to others ; but in my own various and acute 
afflictions which surrounded me on all sides, I 

could find no better solace. 



THE END. 




T. WHITE, TRINTER, JOHNSON'S COURT, 
FLEET STREET. 



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